The concerns come as the Los Angeles Times reported during the weekend about an enterprise in La Jolla, StemGenex Medical Group, which describes itself as "the premiere leader in the United States for regenerative medicine."
The Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote about the case of Jim Durgeloh, 59, a construction contractor from Washington state, who was looking for a solution to his hip problems, as well as other cases. Durgeloh paid StemGenex $15,000 for a treatment.
Hiltzik interviewed Durgelogh who was in Southern California with his wife following treatment. Hiltzik wrote,
"They were preparing to fly home, infused with the hope communicated by the clinic staff, who 'seemed very optimistic,' Durgeloh told me.
"A lawsuit in San Diego federal court suggests that StemGenex may have given the Durgelohs nothing but hope. Three StemGenex patients — two with diabetes and one with lupus — say they were misled by the medical group’s marketing pitch to pay $14,900 each in 2015 and 2016 for therapies that have had no effect.
"The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, claims that StemGenex has made its money by 'targeting the ill and the elderly' with 'false, fabricated and purposefully misleading' claims about patient satisfaction."Hiltzik continued,
"StemGenex, in its reply to the ... lawsuit, asserts that the plaintiffs 'cannot prove' that its 'representations regarding the efficacy of its stem cell treatments are actually false.' The plaintiffs, it continues, 'do not cite to a single scientific study that disproves [StemGenex’s] advertised claims.'"UC Davis stem cell scientist Paul Knoepfler wrote yesterday on his blog about Hiltzik's article. Knoepfler was the co-author of a 2016 study that attracted nationwide attention with the disclosure that 570 unregulated stem cell clinics exist in the United States. California leads the way with 113.
Knoepfler focused on Hiltzik's disclosure that one of the StemGenex physicians, Scott Sessions, was placed on three years probation last February involving treatments not related to StemGenex. Sessions was accused of negligence "related to cosmetic surgery and other procedures he performed on two patients at an unrelated facility in 2011 and 2013."
Knoepfler continued,
"Sessions photo was up on the Stemgenex website...and then suddenly it wasn’t. Hiltzik also mentions that Stemgenex has had other questionable information on its web site in the past.
"With California having the most stem cell clinics selling non-FDA approved interventions of any state I hope the state medical board here will wake up to the fact that it needs to give this arena more attention."The state has wide-ranging authority to regulate physicians. A document on the state Department of Consumer Affairs web site says that physicians can be disciplined for such things as "not using accepted, effective treatments or diagnostic procedures," "not referring a patient to a specialist when
appropriate" and "continuing to use a procedure that is unnecessary."
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