Jakarta Globe - AFP, Alexandra Gemperle, November 6, 2013
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| In a picture taken on October 27, 2013, Cynthia Carrion-Norton gestures as she speaks during an interview at her home in Manila. (AFP Photo/Jay Directo) |
Manila.
Cynthia Carrion-Norton flits high-heeled around the Philippine capital with
energy levels belying her years, thankful for a controversial treatment she
highly recommends to fellow sixty-somethings.
Carrion-Norton,
66, a member of the Philippine Olympic Committee and a former undersecretary
for medical tourism, credits her vitality to adult stem cell therapy.
“The day I
got the therapy I went to a dinner party and everyone told me: ‘Cynthia, you’re
blooming!” Carrion-Norton told AFP.
The
procedure involves harvesting the patient’s stem cells from their own fat and
injecting them into their blood, which she likened to being injected with
intravenous fluid in the arm.
In a
country where many elite are obsessed with anti-ageing, wealthy Filipinos are
shelling out between $12,500 and $18,000 per session of stem cell therapy in
the belief it will improve their overall health and make them look younger.
Rich
businessmen and public officials — mostly male — are the most eager customers,
according to Florencio Lucero, a doctor in Manila who said he started
performing adult stem cell therapy in 2006.
“They do it
because they want to work longer,” Lucero told AFP.n”And then they tell their
wives or girlfriends.”
Lucero said
Filipinos had been receiving anti-ageing stem cell treatment since the 1970′s,
often flying abroad to do so.
Thai
medical entrepreneur Bobby Kittichaiwong says he has a lucrative business
catering to the Filipino elite, who pay $20,000 to visit his Villa Medica
clinic in Germany for a more controversial form of stem cell therapy.
The clinic
harvests cells from unborn sheep to be injected into a patient’s muscles, known
as fresh cell therapy, and Kittichaiwong said 400 Filipinos visited last year.
“After 14
days, the patient’s skin will glow and their digestive and immune systems will
improve,” he told AFP.
Among Villa
Medica’s high-profile clients is former president Joseph Estrada, 76, who has
staged a remarkable political comeback in recent years after being forced to
stand down from the nation’s top job in 2001 because of corruption.
“Now I
sleep better, my knees are no longer a problem, my skin has been radiant like
this ever since,” reads a testimonial from Estrada in a Villa Medica brochure.
A
spokeswoman for Estrada, who was this year elected mayor of the nation’s
capital, confirmed he had stem cell therapy treatment at Villa Medica.
Another
remarkable, elderly politician who has cited stem cell therapy as one reason
for his enduring career is 89-year-old Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who was
defense minister during the reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos a generation
ago.
Villa
Medica also cites Enrile as one of its patients.
However the
use of stem cells from sheep has attracted much criticism, with Samuel Bernal,
a professor of medicine at the University of California, among the many
Filipino doctors to warn of its dangers.
“When
animal cells are transmitted to humans, it could be fatal,” Bernal said at a
recent forum on stem cell therapy in Manila.
Kittichaiwong
insists fresh cell therapy is perfectly safe.
“What you
eat everyday is foreign material, but you don’t get rejection,” he said, adding
that Villa Medica planned to soon open a clinic in the Philippines.
‘The
medicine of the future’
Amid this
debate, Carrion-Norton wants to promote the less controversial adult stem cell
therapy in the Philippines, and set up her own clinic.
“I don’t
want only the rich to be able to do it,” she said. “I want everyone that needs
it to be able to do stem cell therapy, because this is the medicine of the
future.”
However,
treatments at Norton’s clinic will start at about $17,000.
“It’s still
expensive, and will remain so unless a lot of people get into the business,”
said Norton.
“That’s why
I want more people to know about it and not be afraid of it.”
Stem cell
therapy for health and cosmetic purposes is popular in China, India and many
other Asian countries. However, like the Philippines, laws and enforcement are
in large part yet to catch up with the medical advances.
The
Philippine Department of Health is scrambling to regulate local stem cell
therapy practices amid a chaotic and often dubious boom in the industry.
In an
effort to tap into the much larger markets of the Philippines’ lower and middle
classes, advertisements for more affordable products and treatments claiming to
use stem cells have been springing up.
Stem cell
pills claiming to make customers “feel and look at least seven years younger”
can be bought through Filipino websites for just 9,000 pesos ($200).
Cheap and
top-end beauty centers also offer a range of treatments, some not involving
qualified health professionals.
Human stem
cell procedures can indeed offer life-saving treatments for patients with
leukemia, lymphoma and some solid tumors, according to the American Medical
Association.
The
US-based International Society for Stem Cell Research also said the procedures
for human, or adult, stem cell therapy had “tremendous potential” for treating
a range of human afflictions.
But it
warned clinics around the world were offering “unproven treatments” for many
illnesses that posed “very real risks of developing complications.”
The lack of
regulations in the Philippines makes it an ideal setting for medical
practitioners to “prey on the desperation of sick people,” Dr Anthony Leachon,
vice president of the Philippine College of Physicians, told AFP.
Health
Secretary Enrique Ona said his department was planning to come up with a list
of doctors and institutions accredited to practice stem cell therapy in the
Philippines.
But the
government is clearly eyeing the potential economic benefits of stem cell
therapies.
“We look at
this issue with a certain degree of liberty to make sure that our hospitals
that are carrying out good stem cell therapy practices can continue them,” Ona
said.
“Hopefully,
in the future, the Philippines can even claim to be a center of stem cell
therapy in this part of the world, if not even internationally.”
Agence France-Presse
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