Specialists warn against 'foetal cell' promotion

Cancer specialists claim an advertisement which promotes an unproven "foetal cell therapy" at a clinic in Mexico as a new wonder treatment is possibly misleading and an attempt to trade on the buzz around stem-cell research.

The advertisement was placed in the Herald yesterday by Malcolm Fiddell and backed by Barry Crump's brother Colin, who was at the Tijuana clinic two weeks ago.

The advertisement said "foetal cell therapy" was a "dramatic new medical advance".

It said the clinic's doctors were "world leaders in the treatment of cancer" and offered people with a "serious debilitating illness ... the very latest in medical science ... unavailable in New Zealand".

It particularly promoted "foetal cell therapy" - a treatment in which cells taken from animal foetuses or embryos are swallowed or injected.

Both Mr Fiddell and Mr Crump said the advertisement was to give people the information they needed to be able to choose their own treatment.

The clinic was also used by teenage film-maker Cameron Duncan, who died in Mexico last year.

However, Dr Michael Sullivan, Christchurch Medical School child cancer specialist, said foetal cell therapy was nothing new.

It became the "celebrity therapy" in the 1930s, when it was touted as a youth elixir, and was claimed to help with Down syndrome and cancer in the 1970s.

"There is absolutely no link between this kind of therapy and the developing area of stem-cell research. There has been a lot of talk about research on embryonic stem cells and its potential in the future and I think this is exploiting that awareness."

He said the ad could be misleading in its comments about how the clinic's treatments worked on the immune system.

Experts advised people to approach the ad's promises with caution.

Cancer Society medical director Dr Peter Dady said foetal cell therapy was "pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo" but such therapies were so widely advertised that it was impossible to do anything other than advise caution.

"There is this sort of stuff on the internet and all over the place now. Is anyone going to stamp it out? No."

He would treat the claims with extreme scepticism.

Dr Scott Macfarlane, Starship Hospital paediatric oncologist, said he was generally open-minded about complementary therapies for cancer, which were used by about 60 per cent of patients.

"But one thing that confuses us and the families is the lack of evidence-based science around some claims being made. It can be expensive and they make a lot of claims which are dubious scientifically and appeal to the extremely vulnerable people who are looking for hope."

Both doctors said such therapies were becoming less popular.

Mr Crump said he had just returned from 10 days at the clinic where he had treatment for a nerve disorder, peripheral neuropathy, which had left his feet painful and swollen since 1986 and which 50 New Zealand doctors had failed to cure. He claimed the Tijuana clinic had nearly cured him.

"They are not quacks, they are doctors, people who are dedicated. There are a few deaths as well. People usually only go there as a last resort after having their immune system destroyed by treatment like chemo."

Mr Fiddell was behind an advertisement for the same institution - then called the American Biologics Hospital - in the Herald in 1996.

The Advertising Standards Board ruled it was socially irresponsible and implied the hospital could successfully treat cancer.

Mr Fiddell said he expected no money from the Mexican hospital or any New Zealand patients who travelled there as a result of the ad.