Hungarian police arrested an American,
two Ukrainians and a Hungarian in late July
as they were planning to perform a stem
cell transplant on a patient in a Budapest
clinic. They were detained under suspicion
of administering illegal and untested stem
cell treatments. One of the Ukrainians, Yuliy
Baltaytis, caused a scandal when his Barbados
clinic was closed after the BBC alleged the
fetal stem cells used in his procedures were
obtained unethically in the Ukraine. The cost
of the Budapest procedure, $25,000, betrayed
the motivation of the four suspects: injecting
stem cells into patients suffering from otherwise
incurable diseases is big business.
The arrests are a recent example of efforts to
rein in a thriving backstreet business in which
patients pay for access to experimental cell
therapies of unknown efficacy or safety.

Извор:
volume 27 number 9 september 2009 nature biotechnology

[StemCells] Institute of Regenerative Medicine Closed in Scandal

BEWARE of Off-Shore Clinics)

Stem cell clinic closed
Published on: 11/26/07.
by Sanka Price

BARBADOS IS NO LONGER in the controversial stem cell treatment
business.

The Institute of Regenerative Medicine (IRM) which was named in a
critical British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television report
last December as one of the clinics using stem cells from aborted
foetuses and dismembered babies, closed in May. Its closure brings to
an end four contentious years of operation here.

The clinic, which was located at Hempstead, Two Mile Hill, St
Michael, was forced to close its doors because business slowed after
the BBC investigation was aired, said Professor Yuliy Baltaytis, the
IRM's scientific director.

"The brutal attack of the BBC and the British papers ruined our
business," said Baltaytis, who spoke to the SUNDAY SUN from New York.

The BBC documentary aired last December 12 and was re-screened on BBC
World News on December 13, claimed that stem cells in the city of
Kharkiv, Ukraine in eastern Europe were not only procured from
aborted foetuses in the first trimester, but that healthy living
babies may have been delivered through induced labour at two weeks'
gestation, killed, their bodies dismembered and their internal organs
and brains removed for the harvest of stem cells.

Video footage of exhumed bodies detailing this barbaric practice was
lodged with the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe had already
investigated the maternity clinic in Kharkiv at the centre of the
allegations in August 2006 and expressed its extreme concern
about "the disappearance of new-born babies in the country and
allegations of trafficking of babies for adoption and of foetuses for
scientific purposes".

The Institute of Cryobiology in Kharkiv, that supplied the IRM with
stem cells, refused to be interviewed for the BBC documentary.

Baltaytis, a Ukrainian, reiterated his condemnation of the British
reports saying: "The European Commissioner said that no crime was
being committed in Ukraine. They said the BBC report and Daily Mail
reports were not true."

The professor, who established the first stem cell clinic here in
2002 - a rejuvenation clinic called "Vita Nova" at Villa Nova, St
John, which was rebranded the IRM in 2004 - said he no longer worked
for the company, and was trying to set up his own business, possibly
in Europe.

Baltaytis said he would like to return here, though he couldn't say
how soon he would. "I like to work in Barbados. I have some patients
over there."

As to the allegations that IRM skipped the country owing their former
landlord $8,000 rent; their employees', salaries; and other companies
money for services provided, Baltaytis stoutly denied this.

"We paid everybody. The only one we may owe is the telephone
company," he insisted.

"I personally delivered cash to [the landlord] from our chairman, Mr
Irme Pakh. ... We paid staff not only money but told them they could
take the furniture," he added.

A staff member however disagreed with Baltaytis. The person told the
SUN an affidavit was signed by the professor agreeing to pay the
National Insurance Scheme (NIS) the deductions taken from their
salaries over the last two years. That apart companies were calling
about monies owed.

"It is just a complete mess," the former employee said.

Quizzed on the NIS payments for staff, Baltaytis said he was "not a
financial officer of the company, so I have limited knowledge. I was
scientific director".

Both Cable & Wireless and the National Insurance Scheme declined to
divulge information about monies owed by the IRM; but the former
confirmed the service had been disconnected.