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Rooyen instructed her to lie to people about where the company was located and about the treatment, and that the owners knew that the stem cells they were giving people were not appropriate for humans, and that they spent the money they made lavishly on entertainment and luxuries for themselves. The woman who sued won her case in 2011, and as a result van Rooyen and Brown had to sell their mansion in order to pay the damages. Brown was reported to have died in 2011.
82:
by
Armando Garcia. Brown and van Rooyen were in Cape Town, South Africa at that time, had changed their names to Sebastian Carlyle and Sean Castle, and had relaunched the company with the name Advanced Cell Therapeutics, Ltd. ACT was run out of a Cape Town office with twenty employees, although this was kept secret; the company website said it was based in Switzerland. ACT's website also offered testimonials from Goddard.
70:, in which FDA agents observed a BioMark representative come to the family's home and prepare to give the treatment. The FDA agents stopped the man and questioned him; on the same day BioMark's offices were raided and the company's bank account holding about $ 250,000 was frozen. Brown and van Rooyen fled the US shortly after that. They were placed on the
55:
Dowman
Covington originally administered the treatments for BioMark, but he stopped working with them in the spring of 2003 after they referred a person with a severe spinal cord injury to him. After that, BioMark either sent a representative to customers' homes to give them the treatments, or referred them to Christopher Goddard, medical director of a
81:
In
December 2004 the company started emailing people it had treated before, telling them the company had re-established operations in London and was offering the treatments in Tijuana and Rotterdam, and was accepting payments in a Swiss bank account. The Tijuana clinic was Corporativo Oncologico run
121:
company called AllCells; AllCells sold each vial of cells for $ 900, and the cells were intended only for laboratory research purposes. After this was made public, ACT shifted to supplying clinics with stem cells from a lab in
Pakistan that did not keep records showing that the cells were made and
130:
expired, bringing the directive into effect, and that he had applied to the Irish
Medicines Board for a license to resume offering them. It emerged later, that Trossel had been administering stem cells at Dunphy's clinic as well. People were being charged €18,500 for the treatments in Cork. In May
89:
published an exposé of BioMark in
February 2005, including the story of a desperate Atlanta man with rapidly progressing ALS who paid BioMark $ 10,000 and was injected by Goddard in Toronto in 2003; his health continued to decline and he died in early 2004. Goddard resigned from Lifebank in April
113:
independently discovered that
Advanced Cell Therapeutics was the same company as BioMark, and had taken over supplying the same clinics that BioMark had worked through, and that a London-based Dutch physician, Robert Trossel, had been offering ACT's stem cell therapy at his Preventative Medicine
54:
Brown and van Rooyen formed BioMark without Ghen in 2002, charging the same amount as Ghen had, and added six people to its scientific advisory board without their consent. An
Atlanta immunologist, Howard Wajchman, isolated HSCs from blood sent to him by the company. An Atlanta physician named
161:
In 2010 Brown and van Rooyen were sued in civil court in South Africa by a woman from South Africa who was paralyzed, and who had been treated in
Rotterdam through ACT in 2005 after paying the company R120,000. A woman who worked as a secretary at ACT at that time, testified that Brown and van
97:
In March 2006 a US federal grand jury in
Atlanta indicted Brown and van Rooyen on 51 counts of medical fraud. The US requested extradition from the South African government, and Brown and van Rooyen were arrested in Johannesburg by April. They began to fight their extradition.
165:
As of 2012 the extradition trial for van Rooyen was still working its way through the courts; the case hung on the fact that the extradition treaty had not been properly signed by the South African government. As of 2016 van Rooeyn was still on the FDA's most wanted list.
196:
model. Like the first wave companies and clinics, they have made similar strong claims and also have not published their protocols or rigorous research; Mexico, Thailand, and India have been centers of this activity, as has South Africa.
154:, by offering them fraudulent treatments in his London and Rotterdam clinics, and at Dunphy's clinic in Cork. The treatments included stem cells from ACT, and a treatment called "Aqua Tilis therapy" that involved "antioxidant steam" and
131:
2006 the Guardian published another story, revealing that Dunphy had a 400 patient waiting list when he stopped offering the treatments, and ACT had planned to get around the lack of licensure by offering the treatment on the
125:
It also emerged that an Irish doctor, John Dunphy, had also been offering cells from ACT at his clinic in Cork. Dunphy said that he stopped offering the treatments when the 2 year grace period allowed under the 2004
51:(HSCs) from an Atlanta-based osteopath named Mitchell Ghen, who had treated Brown's father. Ghen offered stem cell treatments for $ 26,000 until 2003, when the FDA shut down that part of his practice.
94:
article focused on Goddard's role published in June 2005; it was syndicated in newspapers across Canada. It reported that BioMark had resumed business under the name Advanced Cell Therapeutics.
47:
Laura Brown was a former model and Stephen van Rooyen was a South African businessman who had migrated to the US. Neither had any formal medical training. They met in Malibu and learned about
66:, who had become convinced that BioMark treatments could help him, called the FDA with questions about BioMark. They agreed to cooperate with the FDA and in November 2003 the FDA ran a
189:
run by Alexandr Smikodub. These clinics made strong claims about their outcomes, but rarely published their protocols or rigorous research showing therapies were safe and effective.
491:
192:
By 2012 a second wave of companies and clinics had emerged, usually located in developing countries where medicine is less regulated and offering stem cell therapies on a
155:
117:
BBC "Newsnight" then ran an investigative piece that found that ACT was acquiring the stem cells they were giving to people from a California-based research
169:
BioMark/ACT and Trossel's Preventive Medicine Center were in a first wave of companies and clinics offering untested stem cell therapy. Others included
135:, which travels through international waters. By that time Dunphy was under investigation by the Irish Medicines Board and the Irish Medical Council.
39:
closed the company down, van Rooyen and Brown fled to South Africa and started operating the business under the name Advanced Cell Therapeutics.
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780:"Exploiting science? A systematic analysis of complementary and alternative medicine clinic websites' marketing of stem cell therapies"
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35:, and offered its services in the US and Europe, and was founded and run by Stephen van Rooyen and Laura Brown. After the US
173:, Cells4Health run by Cornelis Kleinbloesem, the Beijing Xishan Institute for Neuroregeneration and Functional Recovery in
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In 2006 after tabloids in the UK published stories about spectacular recoveries after stem cell treatments, and after the
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show hosted a doctor who administered them, demand for stem cell treatments in the UK was high. In March of that year
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In October 2006 the Dutch medical authority ordered the Rotterdam clinic to stop giving people stem cell therapy.
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Munro, Margaret (June 25, 2005). "City doctor in stem-cell probe: U.S. businessman received unproven treatment".
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and came under investigation by Health Canada and the British Columbia Medical Association. A
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called Lifebank Cryogenics in Canada who licensed to practice medicine in British Columbia.
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418:"Stem cell firm uses Swansea ferry to evade Irish block on controversial treatment"
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679:"Testimony in shocking supermodel stem cell fraud case: "I lied to patients""
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311:"Alleged U.S. Stem Cell Fraudsters Shielded by South African Legal Logjam"
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Enserink, M (July 14, 2006). "Biomedicine. Selling the stem cell dream".
390:"Stem Cell Swindlers Charged with Fraud (includes Grand Jury Indictment)"
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186:
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563:"GP provided stem-cell treatment in clinic until change in EU rules"
705:"The malignant niche: safe spaces for toxic stem cell marketing"
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757:"South Africa's struggle to control sham stem cell treatments"
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for exploiting his vulnerable patients, including people with
778:
Murdoch, B; Zarzeczny, A; Caulfield, T (February 28, 2018).
222:. FDA Office of Criminal Investigations. September 22, 2016
514:"Dutch clinic is ordered to stop giving stem cell therapy"
604:"Ferry firm 'astonished' by stem cell plan on ferries"
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31:, starting in 2002. It was originally located in
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409:
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365:
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330:"The Shady Side of Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy"
122:packaged in a way that was safe for human use.
277:"A desperate injection of stem cells and hope"
492:"Mother and toddler caught in stem cell scam"
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622:"Stem cell doctor Robert Trossel struck off"
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660:"I lied to patients, says distraught woman"
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583:O'Sullivan, Claire (September 30, 2010).
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641:"Warning over claims of stem cell cures"
114:Center clinic in Rotterdam for £12,000.
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585:"Stem cell doctor struck off register"
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755:Slabbert, Melodie (August 21, 2015).
658:Schroeder, Fatima (August 25, 2010).
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243:"Scientists to issue stem-cell guide"
241:McCullough, Marie (August 28, 2017).
146:In 2010 Tossel was struck off by the
62:In 2003, the family of a person with
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639:Boseley, Sarah (January 10, 2010).
275:Zarembo, Alan (February 20, 2005).
602:O'Sullivan, Claire (May 2, 2006).
328:Barrett, Stephen (April 5, 2015).
14:
490:Lyons, Jane (September 4, 2006).
372:"Doctors' concern over MS clinic"
370:Boseley, Sarah (March 20, 2006).
309:Black, Georgia (April 23, 2007).
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512:Sheldon, T (October 14, 2006).
416:Boseley, Sarah (May 1, 2006).
23:) was a company that marketed
1:
220:"OCI's Most Wanted Fugitives"
72:FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives
25:fraudulent medical treatments
561:Roche, Barry (May 2, 2006).
454:10.1126/science.313.5784.160
37:Food and Drug Administration
866:Fraud in the United Kingdom
861:Fraud in the European Union
796:10.1136/bmjopen-2017-019414
518:BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.)
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841:Fraud in the United States
530:10.1136/bmj.333.7572.770-a
17:Advanced Cell Therapeutics
721:10.1038/s41536-017-0036-x
709:npj Regenerative Medicine
354:CanWest via Vancouver Sun
76:FDA Most Wanted Fugitives
49:hematopoietic stem cells
156:electromagnetic therapy
148:General Medical Council
836:Health fraud companies
628:. September 29, 2010.
496:Sydney Morning Herald
247:Philadelphia Inquirer
21:BioMark International
128:EU Tissue Directive
19:(formerly known as
152:multiple sclerosis
133:Swansea Cork ferry
104:Richard & Judy
871:Fraud in Pakistan
281:Los Angeles Times
87:Los Angeles Times
29:stem cell therapy
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851:Fraud in Canada
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662:. IOL News.
392:. CaseWatch
175:Shijingshan
831:Stem cells
825:Categories
334:Quackwatch
201:References
683:The Niche
139:Aftermath
814:29490963
784:BMJ Open
739:29302366
548:17038718
470:56728772
462:16840673
315:ABC News
74:and the
805:5855243
730:5736713
539:1601997
442:Science
396:June 1,
226:June 4,
187:Ukraine
177:run by
119:reagent
92:Canwest
78:lists.
43:History
33:Atlanta
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715:: 33.
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466:S2CID
810:PMID
735:PMID
544:PMID
458:PMID
398:2018
228:2018
183:Kyiv
85:The
800:PMC
792:doi
725:PMC
717:doi
534:PMC
526:doi
522:333
450:doi
446:313
64:ALS
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