AP: China offers unproven medical treatments.
BEIJING (AP) — They’re paralyzed from diving accidents and car crashes, disabled by Parkinson’s, or blind. With few options available at home in America, they search the Internet for experimental treatments — and often land on Web sites promoting stem cell treatments in China.
They mortgage their houses and their hometowns hold fundraisers as they scrape together the tens of thousands of dollars needed for travel and the hope for a miracle cure.
A number of these medical tourists claim some success when they return home:
Jim Savage, a Houston man with paralysis from a spinal cord injury, says he can move his right arm. Penny Thomas of Hawaii says her Parkinson’s tremors are mostly gone. The parents of 6-year-old Rylea Barlett of Missouri, born with an optical defect, say she can see.
But documentation is mostly lacking, and Western doctors warn that patients are serving as guinea pigs in a country that isn’t doing the rigorous lab and human tests that are needed to prove a treatment is safe and effective…
This article points to various differing schools of thought concerning China’s stem-cell policy. These viewpoints have nothing to do with the sanctity of life or other issues that dominate American discourse; rather, the debate is centered on the need for scientific research to progress and the need for regulation of said research. These two concepts need not be mutually exclusive, although, in the international scientific community, it often turns out that way.
-Bryan
March 5th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
This article accurately identifies the strife between our (Chinese) medicine, and Western thought. The article clearly shows misinformation and reporting of the effects of the stem cell treatments. It is strange that some report none or negative changes while others claim powerful and healing results of the Chinese treatments. What can be done to certify the claims made by both US and Chinese companies? It is a hard question, and one that will take much work and thought. For China, being one of the only countries to allow this type of stem cell treatment, we have received much speculation and been the target for wrongful practice.
What are other delegates perspectives on what is happening in China? The delegation of the People’s Republic of China wonders the perceptions that other delegations have on our country after reading this article.