Stem Cell Therapy Germany
Stem cell therapy in Germany has recently come under fire after a high-profile case involving the death of a child with cerebral palsy who underwent treatment at the country’s primary stem cell therapy clinic – the XCell Center in Düsseldorf. This treatment center, which was established in 2007 by a Dutchman, Dr. Cornelis H. Kleinbloesem, is exceptionally well marketed and makes use of Germany’s reputation as rigorous, strict, and scientific in contrast to some of the other stem cell treatment centers in countries such as India, China, or Mexico.
What people may not know about the XCell Center, however, is that it has, to date, not published a single piece of academic, scientific, research to support the treatments that it claims to have provided to over 4000 patients. In June this year (2010) the clinic gained approval, however, for a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial into the use of stem cells for spinal cord injury, the results of which stem-cell researchers eagerly await. XCell have two clinics, one in Dusseldorf and one in Cologne, Germany, and have recently opened a new center, near Heerdt, purporting to be conducting research to assess the efficacy of the treatments they have been providing untested for years. As Susanne Kutter commented in an article in the German publication WirtschaftsWoche, scientists usually do things the other way around (2010).
Wolfgang Oertel
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