Don Margolis

I read the same article. However, I saw it in a different light.

I saw a man who did look at the clinical trials using stem cells for spinal cord injuries in the United States— zero, although if he did look at the www.clinicaltrials.gov website, he may have found other encouraging trials to improve his condition such as "Scheduled Telephone Intervention for Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury and Their Families" or "Spinal Cord Injury Vocational Integration Program (SCI-VIP)".

I saw a man who has been to China before for a stem cell therapy- not a trial, not a cure, and he was happy with the services/benefits provided for his money (like being able to go outside and watch his children play sports) Therefore, quite logically, he would like to go back for more of the same.

His other option is to sit at home and wait for the United States to BEGIN a small clinical trial (which he may or may not qualify for- most don’t). He can wait for the clinical trials to run their course— perhaps 10 more years? And then he can get his ethical stem cell treatment here in the US.

Especially from the internet these days, information is widely available to all, a treatment doesn’t necessarily have to be published in the New England Journal for it to be deemed effective.

A patient can find out many of the negatives and positives about a stem cell therapy by speaking with former patients or looking at patient testimonials, emailing other patients, there are huge (in number) SCI forums that I assume Chuck and his family got involved in. If a person like Chuck got "scammed" in China, most likely it will be all over the internet and the article would have been about how Chuck (or others like Chuck) had been taken advantage of and most of the SCI "community" would know about it shortly thus putting the China center out of business.

These patients and their families are intelligent people and obviously weighed the good vs. the bad. They know the risks going in and if Chuck feels it was worth $30,000 or so for him to go outside and watch his kids grow up for the next 10 years, who am I to say he was wrong. He obviously thought it was worth it.

Yes, the treatment may be "unproven" in the eyes of the medical community, but it was proven to Chuck (and countless others like him) and that is what is important.

I read the same article. However, I saw it in a different light.

I saw a man who did look at the clinical trials using stem cells for spinal cord injuries in the United States— zero, although if he did look at the www.clinicaltrials.gov website, he may have found other encouraging trials to improve his condition such as "Scheduled Telephone Intervention for Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury and Their Families" or "Spinal Cord Injury Vocational Integration Program (SCI-VIP)".

I saw a man who has been to China before for a stem cell therapy- not a trial, not a cure, and he was happy with the services/benefits provided for his money (like being able to go outside and watch his children play sports) Therefore, quite logically, he would like to go back for more of the same.

His other option is to sit at home and wait for the United States to BEGIN a small clinical trial (which he may or may not qualify for- most don’t). He can wait for the clinical trials to run their course— perhaps 10 more years? And then he can get his ethical stem cell treatment here in the US.

Especially from the internet these days, information is widely available to all, a treatment doesn’t necessarily have to be published in the New England Journal for it to be deemed effective.

A patient can find out many of the negatives and positives about a stem cell therapy by speaking with former patients or looking at patient testimonials, emailing other patients, there are huge (in number) SCI forums that I assume Chuck and his family got involved in. If a person like Chuck got "scammed" in China, most likely it will be all over the internet and the article would have been about how Chuck (or others like Chuck) had been taken advantage of and most of the SCI "community" would know about it shortly thus putting the China center out of business.

These patients and their families are intelligent people and obviously weighed the good vs. the bad. They know the risks going in and if Chuck feels it was worth $30,000 or so for him to go outside and watch his kids grow up for the next 10 years, who am I to say he was wrong. He obviously thought it was worth it.

Yes, the treatment may be "unproven" in the eyes of the medical community, but it was proven to Chuck (and countless others like him) and that is what is important.