International Society Publishes Open Letter to Address Stem Cell Treatment Proliferation

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Nonprofit calls on all stem cell clinics to come into compliance with minimum standards and submit to formal evaluation.

APRIL 19, 2010. PORTLAND, OREGON – Today, the International Cellular Medicine Society (ICMS) took a bold step in releasing an open letter to stem cell clinics in response to the unprecedented increase in stem cell based therapies. The Society – a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cell based medicine through patient safety, physician education, and peer oversight – has released this letter to warn clinics that the proliferation of unaccredited stem cell clinics around the world cannot be tolerated by patients or the international medical community.

The letter details a list of minimum standards and guidelines developed and published by the ICMS in order to inform and protect patients. The Society believes that clinics that fail to meet such practice standards pose a tremendous health risk and do not demonstrate the necessary level of good patient care.
Over the course of the next four months, the ICMS will be sending this letter across the globe to all clinics offering cellular therapy, calling on them to embrace the organization’s standards and guidelines and submit themselves to a formal independent evaluation. The process of evaluation and accreditation of these clinics will be overseen by the ICMS Medical Advisory Board and Treatment Oversight Committees. These volunteer groups are comprised of physicians and researchers with significant domain expertise in specific condition treatment and cell based medicine.

“Clinics need to know that the ICMS is watching and that we will expose those clinics that refuse to submit to oversight by the international medical community,” says David Audley, Executive Director of the ICMS. “Transparency, independent evaluation and accreditation is the only appropriate response to the growth of these innovative treatments. As a patient, I would be very wary of any clinic that failed to meet the minimum standards of the ICMS, or refused to participate in the accreditation process. For clinics, this is the only way to truly demonstrate their commitment to patient safety and good patient care.”

The complete version of the letter can be found at www.cellmedicinesociety.org/clinics

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ABOUT THE ICMS
The ICMS is a physician guided international 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to patient safety and the protection of the practice of medicine and physician education through the production of global guidelines for the practice of cell based medicine. The society maintains three websites, www.cellmedicinesociety.org, focused on adult stem cell education and awareness for physicians and researchers; www.stemcellwatch.com, a portal for patient education and the collection of complaints against stem cells clinics; and www.cellregistry.org, a re-implantation registry to track the long term outcomes of adult stem cell based procedures and therapies.