Disadvantages of Stem Cell Clinical Trials
Alright, so we have discussed various aspects to clinical trials, but are they not riddled with disadvantages too? In some ways, yes they are. Firstly, stem cell clinical trials can be extremely expensive, time-consuming, and appear futile when no clear outcome occurs. Very few actually take place for a specific treatment option or condition each year, particularly involving stem cell science, as there are massive legal, ethical, financial, and academic hoops of fire to jump through before they can begin to even recruit participants who might then be hard to find or turn out to be unsuitable. Researchers must ensure that they have a solid method, that they are not testing too many variables at once, that they can acquire funding to cover the whole trial, that they have the necessary equipment and facilities, that they will pass ethics committees and that their work will have a likely audience and useful consequences. Often this appears to mean that a positive result is looked for, i.e. that a new drug or treatment has a significant effect. In actuality, a non-significant result may demonstrate the necessity for a different approach, that the methodology was unsound, or some other factor that requires attention, rather than ‘disproving’ somethings effectiveness. Negative or seemingly insignificant effects may actually be more important in a lot of cases than those that are resoundingly positive; realistically, it is rarely these that make the headlines. Statistical analysis is a fascinating subject, and easily manipulated by the unscrupulous to present the desired outcome.
Patients being Patient
Another disadvantage of clinical trials is that they can be highly frustrating to the ordinary patient awaiting treatment and longing for this promised cure-all that only a select few get to receive on a trial basis. This is why stem cell clinics are becoming so widespread, with the US and a number of other countries slow to address the rapidly changing face of stem cell research in line with legal restrictions and thereby further slowing research unnecessarily. As autologous stem cells have been discovered to be able to become as plastic as foetal stem cells a number of the restrictions on stem cell research have become redundant, but the law often takes a while to reflect this change and clinical trials can find it difficult to gain funding in controversial areas.
High Expectations
Clinical trials also have the disadvantage that their publication may capture public, and media, attention prior to the full paper being published as was the case at the end of 2010 when a ‘cure for aids’ was announced in many publications in light of a patient’s apparent recovery in Berlin after bone marrow transplant for leukaemia. For almost a week the actual paper remained unpublished with all the discussion focusing on the abstract alone. Whilst the news of the use of stem cells as a possible cure for HIV/AIDS is clearly very exciting the rapid response to this paper was, frankly, dangerous, with carefree behaviours being promoted in some corners as a result.
Upon publication of the full paper, the furore had abated somewhat and few would have actually read the full research which went on to show that the likelihood of stem cells becoming a widespread treatment for HIV/AIDS was not only very low but involved significant danger to the patients and may actually present a worse outcome than the continued use of anti-retro-viral medication regimes. The clinical trial itself was not at fault, simply the somewhat dangerous reception of the research. It is important to remember that this was just one person, that the stem cells were not being specifically used for treating the HIV but that the apparent cure occurred as a consequence of the man’s treatment for leukaemia and required the highly dangerous destruction of his immune system in the process of recovery.
Read about: How to Participate in Clinical Trials
