ICMS Issues Clinic Warning Letter

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 14, 2011

Contact:  David Audley

503-884-6590

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www.cellmedicinesociety.org

ICMS Issues Letter for Clinic Accreditation

Portland, OR, September 14, 2011 – The International Cellular Medicine Society (“ICMS”), a   professional medical association dedicated to the advancement of adult stem cell therapies, issued a letter to the clinics seeking accreditation warning them of issues with potentially misleading claims about their accreditation status.

“It has come to our attention that certain clinics may have been misrepresenting their accreditation status.” says David Audley, the Executive Director of the ICMS. “This is a clear violation of the accreditation agreement, and we have taken corrective action to assure that patients are not misinformed.” The ICMS will continue to monitor how clinics present their progress and will hold them accountable to new  Guidelines for Patient Recruitment.

The Accreditation Program, launched in Spring of 2011, is the only process available to date to evaluate clinics and facilities offering cell based treatments. The ICMS developed this process, in collaboration with physicians and researchers from around the world, to bring transparency and oversight to stem cell medicine. It is an 18 to 24 month long process that includes review of treatments by an Institutional Review Board, and site audits and collection of patient outcome data. While nearly a dozen clinics are currently participating in the program, not a single clinic or facility has yet been accredited by the ICMS.

“Clinics that falsely claim accreditation will not be tolerated,” continued Audley. “Any clinic that continues to make purposefully false or misleading statements about their accreditation status will be expelled from the program.” The ICMS sites its expulsion of RNLBio in the Spring of 2011 for failure to comply with recommendations from an investigation into patient deaths as precedent and evidence of the seriousness of the issue.

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About the INTERNATIONAL CELLULAR MEDICINE SOCIETY  

The ICMS, a professional medical association, is dedicated to the advancement of adult stem cell based medicine. The Society is 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides best practices guidelines for the practice of cell based medicine, manages a first of its kind Treatment Registry to outcomes from cell based therapies and oversees a global accreditation program for stem cell clinics. The Society maintains two websites, www.CellMedicineSociety.org that is focused on research and education for physicians and www.StemCellWatch.com, a portal for patient awareness and education.