People are living longer than ever before. As we age, it’s common to develop new aches, ailments, and illnesses — and then we often go online to learn about products and treatments to help maintain and improve our health. But a word to the wise: there’s a lot of false and misleading information out there, including what some promoters are saying about stem cell therapy. The truth is, stem cell products have not been shown to be safe or effective for most ailments, and could actually be harmful.
Today, the FTC and Georgia’s Office of the Attorney General (AG) filed a joint complaint against a current and former chiropractor and several of their companies, including Stem Cell Institute of America. The complaint says that the defendants falsely advertised that stem cell therapy could treat a variety of ailments and even replace approved treatments — when it couldn’t. The agencies also say that the defendants sold this scheme to other chiropractors and healthcare providers, teaching them to make the same claims about stem cell therapy and administer injections. According to the FTC and the Georgia AG’s Office, these claims that stem cell therapy could treat joint pain and other ailments were baseless.
If you’re looking to treat a medical ailment, here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Don’t trust a website just because it looks professional, uses medical terms, or has success stories from “real people,” which can be made up.
- Think critically about any claims you see, especially health claims about new procedures.
- Do your research online. Search for the name of the company treatment, or procedure plus the words “scam,” “complaint,” and “review.”
- Then, check out so-called treatments and claims with your health provider. Don’t make medical decisions based on advertising or marketing materials.
If you spot a scam, tell your state attorney general’s office and report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
2 Comments
Read Our Privacy Act Statement
It is your choice whether to submit a comment. If you do, you must create a user name, or we will not post your comment. The Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes this information collection for purposes of managing online comments. Comments and user names are part of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) public records system, and user names also are part of the FTC’s computer user records system. We may routinely use these records as described in the FTC’s Privacy Act system notices. For more information on how the FTC handles information that we collect, please read our privacy policy.
Comment Policy
This is a moderated blog; we review all comments before they are posted. We expect participants to treat each other and the bloggers with respect. We will not post comments that do not comply with our commenting policy. We may edit comments to remove links to commercial websites or personal information before posting them.
We won’t post:
Comments submitted to this blog become part of the public domain. To protect your privacy and the privacy of others, please do not include personal information. Also, do not use this blog to report fraud; instead, file a complaint.