Joint investigation team of four local
police offices in Ehime, Kochi, Ibaraki and Kyoto arrested 6 persons, including
a medical doctor, with suspect of violation against Regenerative Medicine
Safety Preservation Law on Sunday. They are suspected to have planting
umbilical cord blood without registration to the government of Japan. It was
the first time for the government to make forced investigation on illegal
medication related to umbilical cord blood, which was supposed to work for
beauty treatment.
Umbilical cord blood is retrieved from
navel string or placenta, which includes stem cell generated to blood cell.
Although stem cell medication has been making in treatment for leukemia through
blood cell bank with governmental license, scientific effectiveness or safety
in medical treatment for cancer or beauty treatment has not been reconfirmed.
Having concern on such medical treatment with high reward, the government
required submission of treatment plan after legislation of Regenerative
Medicine Preservation Law in 2014.
The suspects include president of an
umbilical cord blood bank, broker of the blood and a medical doctor in a medical
clinic in Tokyo. According to the announcement of the police team, they planted
umbilical cord blood on four patients for six times without license for doing
that treatment. The president of the bank also suspected as making medical
treatment in Kyoto.
The planted blood had been kept in a
private umbilical cord blood bank, Tsukuba Brains, which had bankrupted in
2009. The arrested president of a blood bank obtained a thousand and some
hundreds of blood objects for examination in 2010 and sold 300 or 400 of them
to clinics in Tokyo and Osaka. It is supposed that the president have thought
the business over umbilical cord blood was profitable.
Three patients out of ten who had the
treatment of planting umbilical cord blood were foreigners mainly from China.
While a planting medication cost ¥3 million, the patients visited Japan in
anti-aging travel tours and had the treatment. A clinic in Tokyo advertised its
treatment as effective for rejuvenating cells by ten or twenty years and easing
pain in cancer treatment. One clinic has earned ¥200 million with the
treatment.
Study on stem cell is still in a process of
verification in Japan. While umbilical cord blood is used for treatment on
leukemia through public blood bank, it is expected to apply the technology to
regenerative medicine such as treatment for cerebral palsy. Medical doctors are
worried about negative impact of the illegal treatment on development of
regenerative medicine.
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