Despite world skepticism of China's research approach to stem cell therapies, Medical Tourism continues to grow as China's government pours generous dollars into research on regenerative medicine and aggressively recruits high-caliber scientists trained abroad in pursuit of its ambition to become a world leader in the field. This According to a study by the Canadian-based McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health (MRC). As a result of its expanded investment, Chinese contributions to scientific journals on RM topics leapt from 37 in year 2000 to 1,116 in 2008, exceeded only by the contributions of experts in the USA, Germany, Japan and the UK.
The accomplishment is all the more interesting given that China's international credibility has been and still is severely hindered by global concerns surrounding Chinese clinics, where unproven therapies continue to be administered to thousands of patients, including an increasing number of desperate Westerners fueling Medical Tourism which has become a growth industry.
"When you look at the issue of stem cells in China, you see the Yin-Yang of a scientific powerhouse mixed with controversial clinical application of stem cell therapies," said Dr. Peter Singer, MRC's Director. "The overall picture at the moment is ambiguous but in the future, given the measures that have been put in place, the science can be expected to rise and the controversy to fall."
Until May 2009, clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of stem cell therapies were not required in China. Now proof of safety and efficacy through clinical trials is required by China's Ministry of Health for all stem cell and gene therapies.
The change was made after international experts, joined by top Chinese researchers, protested that treatment centers were acting "against commonly accepted principles of modern scientific research" and successfully called on China to regulate new treatments and ensure patient safety.
Despite the new rules, however, stem cell treatments are still available at over 200 hospitals across China to patients of diseases such as ataxia, Lou Gehrig's disease, traumatic brain and spinal cord injury, diabetes, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, autism, cerebral palsy, stroke, optic nerve hypoplasia and many others.
"To our knowledge, Chinese policy makers and ethicists are working out the regulation details,” says Ms. McMahon, the study's lead author. "Once that is accomplished, we still expect a delay, during which the therapies currently administered by clinics and hospitals will be evaluated individually to determine whether they meet the criteria of China's Ministry of Health."