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Health Canada and the Competition Bureau have been slow to act against unscrupulous clinics, and medical colleges seem unwilling to tell doctors to cease and desist offering and marketing “evidence-free” therapies, the authors wrote.

They blame the problem, at least partly, on a “simple lack of political will.”

Stem cell therapies have become wildly popularized by celebrities from Tiger Woods to William Shatner, who recently shared with his 2.5 million Twitter followers that he had been injected with tens of millions of umbilical cord stem cells in the hope of restoring “cellular function” to his own aging, 88-year-old cells.

We have to figure out how to regulate these emerging therapies in an effective manner

However, except for a few accepted procedures such as bone marrow transplants to treat some cancers, there is little scientific evidence to support the therapies.

Still, private stem cell clinics have cropped up across the country in recent years. One 2018 study found 43, including 17 in the Greater Toronto Area alone. Clinics charge upwards of $3,500 per injection site, with discounts given for multiple injection sites.

Typically, cells are harvested from the person’s own belly fat or bone marrow, manipulated or processed in some way (often with platelet-rich plasma) and then “reintroduced,” or injected back into the patient.

Stem cell treatments are being aggressively marketed for arthritis, fractures, ligament or tendon injuries, tennis or golf elbow, rotator cuff tears and pitcher’s elbow, the 2018 study found. Some clinics peddle stem cells for conditions ranging from ALS to Parkinson’s disease, others for wrinkles and “face/neck sagging.” In most cases, risks were played down, if mentioned at all.