China Offers Unproven Medical Treatments

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Paralyzed after a diving accident almost a year ago, 15-year-old Celine Lyon receiving treatment at the Tiantan Puhua Hospital in Beijing, China, Thursday, May 24, 2007. Tiantan Puhua, a joint venture between Asia's largest neurological hospital and American Pacific Medical Group, specialize in using stem cells injections to treat diseases ranging from stroke and spinal cord injuries to cerebral palsy and ataxia. Since opening its treatment to foreigners last year, the hospital has been attracting increasing interest from overseas patients, the latest breed of medical tourists. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) (Ng Han Guan - AP)

Kazakstan's Serik Ananchiev, 27, right receiving treatment at the Tiantan Puhua Hospital in Beijing, China, Thursday, May 24, 2007. Tiantan Puhua, a joint venture between Asia's largest neurological hospital and American Pacific Medical Group, specialize in using stem cells injections to treat diseases ranging from stroke and spinal cord injuries to cerebral palsy and ataxia. Since opening its treatment to foreigners last year, the hospital has been attracting increasing interest from overseas patients, the latest breed of medical tourists.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) (Ng Han Guan - AP)

Kazakstan's Serik Ananchiev, 27, left paralysed in a car accident and Zhao Jionghao, 2 at right receiving treatment at the Tiantan Puhua Hospital in Beijing, China, Thursday, May 24, 2007. Tiantan Puhua, a joint venture between Asia's largest neurological hospital and American Pacific Medical Group, specializes in using stem cells injections to treat diseases ranging from stroke and spinal cord injuries to cerebral palsy and ataxia. Since opening its treatment to foreigners last year, the hospital has been attracting increasing interest from overseas patients, the latest breed of medical tourists.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) (Ng Han Guan - AP)

Angela Im at right looks over as her husband, William T. Gillespie , left talks about her treatment to repair damage to her brain stem caused initially by lupus at the Tiantan Puhua Hospital in Beijing, China, Thursday, May 24, 2007. Tiantan Puhua, a joint venture between Asia's largest neurological hospital and American Pacific Medical Group, specializes in using stem cells injections to treat diseases ranging from stroke and spinal cord injuries to cerebral palsy and ataxia. Since opening its treatment to foreigners last year, the hospital has been attracting increasing interest from overseas patients, the latest breed of medical tourists.(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) (Ng Han Guan - AP)

Chris Hrabik, 21, works on his customized 1993 Nissan 240SX as his wheelchair sits near by Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007, in Oak Ridge, Mo. More than a year after his return from China where he received stem cell therapy, Hrabik says he has nearly complete use of his left hand and improvement in the right, reversing paralysis caused by a car accident near his 18th birthday. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) (Jeff Roberson - AP)

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"We are making no promises," he added. "It's impossible to say exactly how any given patient will respond."

Western experts point to the lack of documented evidence that cell treatments have any benefit for spinal cord injuries or degenerative diseases like Parkinson's.

"All of us in the so-called Western world, if there was something valid, we'd be the first to be offering it," said Steeves, the Canadian professor and director of the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries, known as ICORD.

Three other experts were involved in the study that found no improvement in the seven spinal cord injury patients who went for fetal brain tissue injections in China. The patients were evaluated before and after their surgery.

The doctors stressed their observations were no substitute for a larger, more strict investigation.

"People are looking for a cure," said Dr. Bruce Dobkin, a neurology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine, one of the study's authors. "They may come to do something based more on a gut feeling. It's like looking for a religious miracle."

Along with the patients' booklet of advice about exploring experimental treatments, Steeves and other researchers have drawn up a set of guidelines on how to do research in spinal cord injuries. Another researcher, Dr. Wise Young of Rutgers University, is assembling a network of Chinese medical centers and universities to train researchers and conduct studies that meet international standards.

Dr. Michael Okun, medical director of the National Parkinson Foundation, said his group discourages patients from seeking out experimental treatments unless they're being done under the most rigorous research protocols.

"Stem cell therapy ... is a really interesting area that has a lot of promise for therapeutic approaches. But we're just not ready to be putting stem cells into people's brains at this point in time," said Okun.

But such warnings don't dissuade people like Penny Thomas of Captain Cook, Hawaii. She sought treatment for Parkinson's disease at Tiantan, where doctors drilled into her skull and injected what she was told were cells from a donor's retina. One year later, she said her tremors are almost gone and her medication has been cut to one-half of a single pill.

"I have no regrets and would do it all over again if need be," said Thomas, 53.

So would the parents of Rylea Barlett of Webb City, Mo. The family raised nearly $40,000 from friends and neighbors to spend a month in China at a Beike facility last summer, hoping treatments would cure their daughter's blindness. The child was born with an optic nerve disorder.