• 
• 

Published on July 17, 2007

Doctors are shocked that the National Research Council is to conduct clinical trials on state-hospital patients to replace cornea tissue with stem-cell therapy.

Leading neurologist Dr Thiravat Hemachudha of Chulalongkorn University Hospital asserted the trials were "too risky".

There is no scientific evidence confirming stem-cell therapy is safe for patients with eye diseases, he said.

"No country in the world dares conduct clinical trials because scientists have not been able to confirm stem cells can develop cornea tissue cells. In many countries, research is still in the laboratory," said Thiravat, who is a member of the national committee overseeing modern medical technologies.

The council last week announced it, Mahidol University and Wat Rai Khing Hospital would conduct the trials on 10 patients with cornea-tissue problems.

Council secretary-general Anond Bunjarattanavej said the cornea cells would be developed in other parts of patients' bodies.

The project is the second stem-cell clinical trial in Thailand. The first two years ago at Siriraj Hospital was for heart disease.

It, too, was condemned by experts for prematurely using human subjects to test a treatment considered "controversial" the world over.

Thiravat and colleagues at Chulalongkorn Hospital went public yesterday and demanded the Medical Council and Food and Drug Administration control stem-cell research.

He said stem-cell therapy was normally permitted only in patients with blood-related diseases. For other diseases, treatment was only at the experimental stage, he said.

Medical Council secretary-general Dr Somsak Lohlekha said it, too, worried about stem-cell therapy and he said some hospitals were offering it commercially.

"Legally, hospitals cannot provide medical treatments still in research. I know many hospitals are breaking the law, but without evidence we can't do anything against them," he said.

He admitted the council was dragging its feet on the issue. A committee investigation was set up two years ago following the Siriraj trials. It came to no decision. Another investigation was started last week.

Public Health Ministry registration division director Dr Tares Kassanai said it was working on standards for stem-cell banking, a new service many private hospitals now provide to patients.

"But stem-cell therapy is the responsibility of the Medical Council," he said.

Pennapa Hongthong,

Janjira Pongrai

The Nation