(site: https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/52147/title/Texas-Stem-Cell-Law-Opens-Door-for-Controversial-Treatments/)

Celltex—whose board of directors includes Texas’s former first lady, Anita Thigpen Perry—was actively involved in the bill, according to a Celltex spokesperson. The law is a step in the “right direction,” according to the firm, but “still far from a law which would allow us to provide high-dose adult stem cell banking and therapy in the United States.”

Direct-to-consumer stem cell clinics, influential Texas politicians—some with ties to Celltex—and some patients eager for alternative therapeutic options applaud the law. But scientists question the cells’ efficacy, and bioethicists voice concerns about selling a therapy before the evidence is all in. Without rigorous testing and FDA oversight, critics say, there are no guarantees that these direct-to-consumer stem cell clinics abide by rigorous laboratory practices and that the interventions are not putting patients at risk.

“It’s true that we are very excited about the ability to develop effective new therapies using stem cells but there is a tremendous amount of research required to figure out how to do this effectively and safely,” says Sean Morrison, a stem cell biologist and director of the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “There are many companies short-circuiting that process and selling patients unproven entities that they have not shown to be effective nor safe. In some cases, the unproven therapies are scientifically implausible based on what we know about the biology.” 

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Celltex CEO David Eller says the company has safely administered MSCs to more than 4,500 clients. “All of them have received improvements, some minimally and some miraculously,”