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It can be said that if pharmaceuticals were as effective as they are billed to be, there would be far less sick people on earth. Daily reminders on our televisions and smartphones instigate sufferers throughout the United States to “ask your doctor” about the latest and greatest pill that will “significantly reduce” symptoms associated with a multitude of ailments. Statistics from Statista.com show that in 2019 pharmaceutical sales in the United States were around 491 billion dollars, and that the pharmaceutical industry was the number one leading lobbying industry spending a reported 295 million dollars to influence government leaders to create legislation that would be beneficial to their activities. A world of healthy people would be a disaster for the pharmaceutical industry.
FDA Protection of Drug Companies
Harvard chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Dr. Herbert Ley, was an American physician who became the 10th Commissioner and head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1968. He is known for his criticism of the ways in which big pharma operated and was responsible for more than 300 dangerous drugs being removed from the United States’ markets including his battle with the Upjohn Company involving their drug Panalba, which the company marketed and sold for seven years without doing any efficacy studies as required by law. Ley was ousted on December 12, 1969 but his moment was palpable. “The FDA protects the big drug companies,” he said, “and is subsequently rewarded, and using the government’s police powers, they attack those who threaten the big drug companies. People think that the FDA is protecting them. It isn’t. What the FDA is doing, and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day.”
Use of Adult Stem Cells from Bone Marrow
One treatment that often comes under attack by the FDA and pharmaceutical companies is that of regenerative medicine and stem cell treatments. Stem cells are unique cells from which all other cells are derived. Simply stated, stem cells have the ability to replicate and differentiate into multiple tissue types and are used to promote healing in damaged tissues. There are two different umbrella types of stem cells “competing” in the marketplace—embryonic and adult stem cells. While embryonic stem cells have long been considered to lack ethical morality—being harvested from the destruction of a human embryo—they are also that which was most historically studied, leaving the use of adult stem cells (which can be harvested from a person’s own bone marrow stem cells, abdominal fat, and stem cells obtained from the blood of newborn baby’s umbilical cords) often by the wayside. The safety of these adult types of stem cells, however, is extremely good if the cells are prepared and given correctly by an experienced physician.
One such practitioner of regenerative medicine, Dr. David Steenblock, D.O. has worked with stem cells for over 40 years, and spent three months at the University of Washington department of Hematology Oncology during the summer of 1969 studying bone marrow transplants for leukemia treatment, which he considers one of the foundational aspects that encouraged stem cell treatments for other degenerative diseases. In 2008 he reported the first positive clinical results in the world using the patient’s own bone marrow for treatment of a variety of health problems at a conference at Cambridge, England. The research scientists in attendance literally threw objects at him and derided him for presenting such a preposterous idea—that the bone marrow from your own body could be used to heal you of a variety of conditions! As of November 2020, there are now over 12,000 medical journal articles describing the use of bone marrow for the treatment of a variety of medical conditions.
Where Pharmaceutical Drugs are Failing
Pharmaceutical drugs are pure and simple—chemicals. Individual chemicals are selected first and foremost in drug composition based on their patent protection ability because of the necessity for a company to maintain and protect the viability of their investment. Once the drug has a patent, the company must spend between 600 million to 1.2 billion dollars to get it approved by the FDA. This process may take up to ten years and many pharmaceuticals aren’t able to withstand the efficacy testing due to adverse effects. While stem cell research has demonstrated a considerable safety and effectiveness, doctors selling stem cell treatments cannot legally advertise their use for a specific condition as they are not an “FDA approved pharmaceutical drug.” The last major lobbying group in Washington D.C. for stem cells, formally closed their doors in 2013.
Pharmaceutical drug side effects and death are well publicized. According to a July 2015 HealthAffairs blog, about 48% of all Americans take one FDA approved drug daily and over 2,400 people die each week from adverse drug reactions. Over the past twenty years, stem cell pioneer Dr. Steenblock has given over 200,000 vials of umbilical cord blood stem cells to around 10,000 patients from ages two weeks to 96 years old with less than ten mild reactions (mild rash and feeling a little off for a few minutes.) In addition, he has treated about 4000 patients with their own bone marrow with no side effects.
Stem cell treatments are known to effectively treat a number of conditions and patients, who are often very positive about their results, lending a considerably exciting alternative to the pharmaceutical route where a patient often remains a patient for life. One google review of internet blogs will see positive stem cell patient testimonials throughout the world from a plethora of debilitating conditions of neurological, cardiovascular, respiratory, and musculoskeletal type including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS,) Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, Cerebral Palsy, Heart Disease, Coronary Artery Disease, Stroke, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Osetoarthritis, Degenerative Disc Disease, Muscle Strains, and more while the same searches focused on pharmaceuticals will yield much less exciting results. For seasoned physicians like Dr. Steenblock, the advice is simple, “Just give us a call” he says, from his state-of-the-art facility and largest known private medical library in San Clemente, California, “once you’ve done some research for yourself—we can talk about your personal case.” Dr. Steenblock’s book “Umbilical Cord Stem Cell Therapy” is also available on Amazon.com.
What do you think about the advancements of adult stem cell treatments vs pharmaceutical drugs? Let us know down in the comments.
This article originally published on GREY Journal.