By Pat Anson Editor

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has stepped up its crackdown on the stem cell industry by filing two complaints in federal court seeking permanent injunctions against stem cell clinics in Florida and California.

US Stem Cell of Sunrise, Florida and California Stem Cell Treatment Center are accused of marketing stem cell products without FDA approval and for “significant deviations” from safety and manufacturing guidelines. Both companies said they would “vigorously defend” themselves and challenge the FDA’s authority to regulate autologous stem cells, which are made from a patient’s own blood or tissue.

The  lawsuits could ultimately decide the fate of hundreds of stem cell clinics that have opened around the country in recent years, offering new therapies for arthritis, neuropathy, degenerative disc disease and other chronic conditions.

“Cell-based regenerative medicine holds significant medical opportunity, but we’ve also seen some bad actors leverage the scientific promise of this field to peddle unapproved treatments that put patients’ health at risk. In some instances, patients have suffered serious and permanent harm after receiving these unapproved products,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said in a statement.

In 2015, three elderly women became legally blind after having unapproved stem cell treatments for macular degeneration at US Stem Cell. The clinic was also warned by the FDA last year to stop using adipose tissue (body fat) to make stem cells that were injected into the spinal cords of patients.

The FDA alleges that California Stem Cell Treatment Center – which has clinics in Beverly Hills and Rancho Mirage -- is also using stem cells derived from adipose tissue to treat patients suffering from arthritis, stroke, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), multiple sclerosis (MS), diabetes, cancer and other conditions.

“The unproven and potentially dangerous treatment was being injected intravenously and directly into patients’ tumors,” the FDA said.

The case against California Stem Cell could have a broad impact because it also targets the Cell Surgical Network Corporation (CSN), which has a chain of about 100 stem cell clinics. At issue in both lawsuits is whether a patient’s own stem cells can be used for therapeutic purposes and are outside the control of federal agencies like the FDA.

“CSN strongly rejects the idea that a person’s own cells should be regulated by FDA as a drug,” Dr. Elliot Lander of CSN and California Stem Cell Treatment Center said in an email to The Niche, a stem cell blog.

“We share FDA’s concern for patient safety, but do not believe that FDA regulation of a surgical procedure that simply harnesses the healing power of a patient’s own cells, without altering the biological characteristics of those cells, is the answer. The decision of whether or not the surgical procedure is performed should be made by the patient and physician – not the FDA or any other arm of the federal government.”

US Stem Cell also released a statement on its website, saying it would “vigorously defend medical freedom of Americans.”