ABSTRACT
In summer 2007 a review article entitled ‘Stem cell therapy for autism’ was published in an obscure journal, stimulating a flurry of international publicity (Ichin et al. 2007). The authors, based in a biotech company in Arizona and in a clinic in Costa Rica, propose treating autistic children with a combination of stem cells derived from bone marrow and umbilical cord blood cells. Before long, reports appeared in the US press that children with autism were being brought by their parents to Mexico and China to get stem cell treatments (which are illegal in the USA – and Britain) at enormous expense. Another autism treatment craze was underway.
