TUGUEGARAO CITY, March 12 (PIA) — The buzz word nowadays in select society is stem cell treatment so much so that fly by night establishments are cashing in on the highly sought treatment.
The Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) will regulate stem cell treatments in the country to ensure safe operation and laboratory practices.

Dr. Kenneth Hartigan-Go, FDA director-general, said cancer patients and ageing individuals are now resorting to stem cell treatments in the country and even abroad; they should be assured of safe treatment procedures as well the laboratory practices.

He said FDA will look into the sources of the raw materials or the cells used to treat patients as well as the screening procedures to ensure that no infectious diseases are transferred to patients.

“The raw cells may come from an animal, another person or from the patient himself but we will not allow raw materials from an aborted fetus. We don’t allow abortions in the country,” Go emphasized.

Stem-cell therapy is an intervention that introduces new adult stem cells into damaged tissue to treat disease or injury.

Many medical researchers believe that stem-cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human diseases and alleviate suffering. The ability of stem cells to self-renew and give rise to subsequent generations with variable degrees of differentiation capacities, offers significant potential for generation of tissues that can potentially replace diseased and damaged areas in the body, with minimal risk of rejection and side effects.

Aside from the regulation on the sources of raw materials, Go said credentials of the operators will be scrutinized as the number of stem-cell therapies are growing, but most are at experimental stages, with the notable exception of bone-marrow transplantation.

“There are already many individuals practising stem cell here in the country but we are not sure if they are really licensed in practising stem cell treatment even if they are registered medical doctors. We need to check their credibility and capacity in conducting stem cell operations,” Dr. Go said.

He also stated that this serves as warning to people in the provinces who are tempted to try the undocumented stem cell treatments in the country.