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What the experts say

Timothy CaulfieldProfessor of health law and science policy, University of Alberta; Canada Research Chair 2002 to 2023

Not outside a registered clinical trial

What it rests onA fifteen-author policy paper in Science Translational Medicine calling for coordinated national and international action on direct-to-consumer marketing of unproven stem cell treatments, plus his own group's audits of clinic websites, crowdfunding campaigns and supplement listings.

Source: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ↗

Dave AspreyEntrepreneur, author and podcast host · founder and CEO of Upgrade Labs · no clinical or scientific credential claimed

Yes, and he does it himself

What it rests onPersonal experience and the practitioners he works with, presented as a longevity practice rather than as a treatment for a diagnosed condition.

Source: daveasprey.com ↗

Overview

Caulfield is describing patients, often with a serious diagnosis, who are being marketed to. Asprey is describing a healthy, wealthy adult buying an elective preventive procedure. Neither is describing the other's person, and the price barrier means almost nobody is in Asprey's population.

Where they agree

Both accept that these treatments are sold direct to consumers outside the trial system, and both accept there are real risks: Asprey writes in the same article that 'there are risks - people have actually lost their vision' and that non-autologous cells 'can cause weird things to happen in rare instances.' The disagreement is whether an informed adult should buy anyway.

What would settle it

Registered trial outcome data for the specific indications being sold, or systematic follow-up of patients treated in commercial clinics. Neither side has either, and Caulfield's position is explicitly about that absence rather than about a negative result.

Practice does not pick a winner here

You do, and your call is dated, kept, and yours to change. Follow the people you already trust and what they publish turns into a short daily practice.

• Record where you land on this, and change your mind later without losing the history
• Everything else these people publish, read and graded, in one place

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