Beware of fake medicines and advertisements touting the purported miracles that stem cell therapy can do. This was the warning aired by former health secretary Esperanza Cabral at the Kapihan sa Manila at the Diamond Hotel last Monday.

Contrary to what the ads claim, she said, stem cell therapy has not been scientifically proven to cure any disease or make anyone young again. It has been successful in a very few experiments, which is the reason quack doctors are taking advantage of it to make exaggerated claims that the therapy can cure the deadliest diseases known to man.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) very recently issued a similar warning against it.

Stem cell therapy is the process of injecting into patients young cells taken from humans or sheep. The theory is that the young cells will rejuvenate the old cells of the patients and make them young again and cure whatever diseases they have. Although experiments are being conducted, no such results have been achieved. But that does not prevent foreign quack doctors from coming here and making all those exaggerated claims. Sadly, they are aided by some Filipino doctors.

The reason is that in countries like the Philippines where the people are suckers for miracle cures, stem cell therapyand other miracle curesis like a gold mine.

Aging millionaires looking for the fountain of youth pay a lot of money to undergo stem cell therapy. Patients with terminal illnesses like cancer, in a desperate search for a cure, also fall victim to the sales talk and word-of-mouth yarns of so-and-so being cured by the therapy.

But they get neither younger nor cured. And the quack doctors run laughing with their patients money all the way to the bank.

A friend told me that he had gone abroad to have stem cell therapy. He said he felt better and stronger after the treatment. Look at me, dont I look younger? he said.

I looked at him. He didnt look a minute younger and in fact looked the same as when I last saw him, maybe even older.

My wife said I look younger, he said. It was his wife who had convinced him to have the stem cell therapy.

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Dont be fooled by quacks and fake meds