He Paid Thousands for a Stem Cell Treatment. It Turned Fatal. | EP 90

The Colorado family is getting $24 million

after one of their loved ones died

from stem cell injections at a Seattle clinic.

I would like to talk to you about stem cells.

And what are they?

Are they really a scam or not?

Should you do them?

Should you even think about it?

Hi, I'm Dr. Kate D and I have an update today

on the stem cell therapy scandal

that broke out back in 2023 here in Seattle.

And I wrote about this in my book.

There was a doctor who founded a stem cell clinic

that was offering stem cell therapy

for a variety of different ailments.

She was selling it basically as a cure or treatment

for all these different ailments,

such as ALS and Parkinson's disease and other diseases.

And this was a huge scandal because back when COVID hit,

she started selling the same stem cell therapy

as a cure for COVID.

And so she finally got investigated

by the Attorney General of Washington State and in 2022.

She was fined $500,000 for making these false claims

about stem cells.

In the news today, the headline is

family of Colorado man who died

after stem cell injection in Seattle

was awarded $24 million.

This is brand new as of today.

King County jury on Thursday awarded $24 million

to the family of a Colorado man who died after receiving

stem cell injection at a Seattle clinic in 2019.

Michael Trujillo, 62 of West Minister Colorado,

died after receiving a spinal injection

at the Seattle stem cell center in April 2019.

Evidence presented at trial showed the clinic performed

a procedure without imaging guidance

while Trujillo was taking blood thinning medication.

And this caused his brain to swell and he died.

I believe that Dr. Tammy Moralia,

according to the article, is planning to appeal.

We believe there are significant issues

for a pellet review,

according to her and her lawyer.

And we intend to pursue an appeal promptly.

She insisted to the news people.

This is from the article that she had not seen the patient

and that the procedure was performed by a different doctor

who worked at the Seattle stem cell center.

And that she also said she was not consulted on the treatment

before it was performed.

Initially, she said the plan was to use an IV for the procedure.

However, the doctor who performed the procedure

changed it to an epidural, which means an injection

around the spinal cord,

while the patient was on a blood thinner with high blood pressure.

And the patient was electrician diagnosed with ALS in 2017,

which you probably know as a degenerative neurologic disorder

that is fatal.

It's also known as Lou Gehrig's disease

after the famous baseball player.

He came to Seattle hoping that this was going to cure him

and instead, he died.

So interestingly in the news,

this is the news report from today.

It says that this doctor was previously hit with a $800,000 judgment.

I can't find that actually.

The original announcement said it was a $500,000 judgment.

I'm not really sure which one it is,

but in any event, she was found to be,

you know, advertising a medical cure to things

that had no data behind it.

So that's the latest $24 million judgment

against her by a jury.

I'm sure it will be appealed.

I'm going to explain to you what stem cells are, okay?

And why they're exciting,

but also why there really is no data

that you should be putting stem cells into you.

So let's get into that.

First of all, what's a stem cell?

So as you probably know,

you're an adult human.

You have lots of different cells.

They develop into a particular kind of cell like a skin cell

or a liver cell or a brain cell and neuron.

And those cells cannot change into another kind of cell.

They are differentiated.

They have one job that's all they have.

And they mostly can't even,

most cells can't regenerate themselves, okay?

What a stem cell is is a cell that can go on

to become multiple different other possible cells

depending on what stimulation happens to that cell.

So for instance,

when an egg is fertilized by a sperm

and forms a brand new embryo,

those resulting cells can now become any other cell

in the whole body.

They will go on to some of them will divide

and eventually become liver cells, kidney cells, heart cells,

muscle cells, etc, okay?

Those cells that can become absolutely any other kind of cell,

those are stem cells and those are called pluripotent,

meaning they can become anything, right?

Now, there are lots of stem cells in the fetus in utero, right?

But once you're born, okay?

You don't have that many left, okay?

For the most part, we think of stem cells

being in your bone marrow, okay?

The stem cells in the bone marrow are not pluripotent,

but they can become multiple different other kinds of

blood cells so they can become red blood cells.

They can become white blood cells.

They can become all the other little cells

that circulate in the blood, okay?

And so that kind of stem cell is what we think of

when you hear stem cell transplant,

let's say, for a cancer, right?

Those, for instance, if you had leukemia,

which is a cancer essentially of your blood cells,

or your white blood cells,

and they're growing too much,

they're potentially threatening your life,

what you can do then, okay?

Is find stem cells from a compatible donor,

you can kill off all your bone marrow with radiation, okay?

So now you don't have any more bone marrow left,

very dangerous thing to do because you now have no immunity.

But if you replace it with new stem cells from someone else

who doesn't have leukemia,

and that grows, that takes that shop in your bone marrow,

replaces all your bone marrow,

and replaces all your blood cells with good,

nice healthy cells, no more leukemia.

That's what we think of as a stem cell transplant.

Are those cells able to become new neurons in your brain?

No, they're not.

So you can't use those as a cure for, say, Parkinson's,

or, you know, something like that, okay?

So what stem cells are we talking about here, okay?

That people are using to cure or to attempt to cure

other diseases, well, there are not a lot of options, okay?

So if you really want a pluripotent cell

cell that can become anything,

you need a donated embryo.

Well, as far as I know, that's not legal in the United States.

So where else can you get them?

You can get them from donated placentas that, you know,

maybe the person who just had a baby,

they're going to throw out the placenta,

the person donates the placenta,

you can take the blood from the umbilical cord

and you harvest the stem cells from there.

And there are manufacturing facilities

creating those stem cells right now.

And those stem cells are being used

for all kinds of experimental things.

We would love to be able to use stem cells in order

to cure disease.

And there's a lot of research going on.

People talk about stem cells in your fat.

Those are very limited.

There's not a lot and they can't become just any cell.

They also talk about other kinds of stem cells

that really, you know,

without getting too deep into the weeds here, right?

The goal is to take this pluripotent cell

that could become anything,

put it somewhere under the right conditions

that it could actually cure disease

or help fix a problem.

So for instance, one of the areas of experimentation

that is going on right now is for joints,

kind of like back in the 70s,

when we first started using PRP

or platelet-rich plasma to help the joints.

So there's no studies.

We're back then that we were just kind of hoping

putting growth factors in there would help.

And then eventually decades later,

there were studies that showed yes, it did help.

Actually recently in last couple years

became an accepted treatment

to treat arthritis of the joints,

mostly to treat symptoms

and then stave off knee replacement, for example.

Stem cells are currently being investigated

in a similar way to try to treat all kinds of things.

But it's not there yet

and it hasn't, it hasn't come anywhere close

to being able to cure anything really.

So it's all very, very experimental.

If you are interested in pursuing an experimental treatment

for something that's just,

you've exhausted all possibilities, right?

There's nothing else to try.

It might be reasonable to try stem cell therapy.

I highly recommend you do it

within a randomized controlled trial

so we can get data out of it.

And we can know whether that stem cell treatment

actually was effective.

So going to a private office

that is doing experimental treatments

and charging money for it

and selling it to you as though there were data

to show, yep, this is going to work

or this works in a certain amount of time

or patience.

That is just false.

That is not, our science is not there yet.

Okay.

So as much as I would love it to be there,

it is not there.

So anyone selling you a cure

for things that are incurable

and they're taking lots of money,

this clinic was charging many, many thousands of dollars

for each treatment

and giving people false hope

that there was a cure for things

that there isn't a cure for.

And I don't want to be like party pooper here

and I'm very interested in cutting edge research

and very interested in curing these diseases

that have taken our loved ones

and that both my parents died

of degenerative neurologic diseases.

I would love to have had an experimental treatment

that actually could have saved them.

So I just encourage you avoid those kinds of scams

avoid any place that guarantees that its therapy

is going to fix an unfixable problem

or something you've been told

has no more treatments.

I'm not saying that it's not important

to pursue every possible avenue it absolutely is

but please consider not taking all your money

and giving it to someone like that

who is selling you a false hope.

If you found this helpful, do me a favor

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