√ Tarek El Moussa Stem Cell Shot, A Flip Or A Flop? Risks Of Celeb Buzz

The world is constantly b0marded these days with often-hyped stories of the latest celebrities who got unproven stem cells, including most recently Jack Nicklaus and now Tarek El Moussa of Flip or Flop TV real estate fame. Both these celebs got stem cells for orthopedic kind of health situations, but while in theory stem cells could help such conditions, the jury is really out on that. Celebrities and other public figures have a special responsibility to be extra cautious to avoid any hyping of unproven medical offerings, but unfortunately media coverage often feels like promotional even if not intended by the celebrity in question.

Why does this matter?

Tarek El Moussa in procedure involving fat stem cells, screenshot from Instagram post

When a celebrity gets an unproven stem cell “treatment” and then they and/or the media make a big deal out of it in public, there is much greater risk overall to others. For every celebrity stem cell patient like Jack Nicklaus and Tarek El Moussa who gets an unproven stem cell injection at a for-profit firm, it seems likely that many regular people will follow in their footsteps. There are real health risks to these stem cell shots.

Also, most people do not have the financial resources of celebrities to drop $10,000 or $20,000 or more without big consequences, which may be practically nothing financially to a celebrity. Sometimes celebrities get free or discounted stem cells too because the clinics know the associated media will be worth a lot financially.

In Tarek El Moussa’s case, he went to social media about his stem cell “treatment” on Instagram (see screenshot image above):

“They lipo my fat out with a 12-inch needle (I asked to take all my fat, they said no) than they spin it and separate the stem cells into a liquid. They then take the liquid and inject it through an IV. Somehow…the stem cells find the injured areas of your body and begin the process of healing it at a super fast rate. I believe they put over 1,000,000 stem cells back in my body after the lipo. It’s wild seeing the technology and future of medicine….has ANYONE had stem cell injections? Is anyone familiar with it? Thank you Brent at @rockinstitute…….I AM PRAYING THIS WORKS!!! I WILL KEEP ALL MY WONDERFUL FANS UPDATED!!”

Then the media quickly swarmed around the story.

Most of the media stories did not ask even mildly probing questions or provide key context to help people understand how risky this kind of thing can be as well as the uncertain and probably low odds of success.

It appears Moussa got the fat stem cells via The Rock Institute based on his Instagram post. It’s not entirely clear, but it seems The Rock Institute has some kind of relationship with California Stem Cell Treatment Center/Cell Surgical Network, which was a focus of a recent suit seeking a permanent injunction by the FDA via the DOJ. I’m not sure how this could impact The Rock Institute.

I am highly skeptical of unproven, for-profit clinic offerings and encourage patients to do their homework, talk to their primary care physicians, asks questions of clinics, and take other steps to make the most informed decisions. Here’s my common-sense guide to thinking about stem cell treatments out there, which I would stress is not medical advice but people have found useful over the years.

Take a sober approach to this rather than following celebs on stem cells.

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√ Vampire Facial Update: Kardashian Has Regrets, Others Maybe Infections

What the devil is a vampire facial?

I first heard about the vampire facial, sometimes also called a “vampire facelift” when professional celebrity Kim Kardashian reportedly got one.

I weighed in on that five years ago here. There was some question in how this procedure was portrayed as to whether it involved stem cells, which seems unlikely at this point.

Kim apparently did this to try to keep a young look, but I figured it had to be risky. Now since her marriage known as Kardashian West, she reportedly has regrets about getting a vampire facial.

According to Allure,

“A few years ago, I heard about a ‘vampire facial,’ and I was so intrigued,” Kardashian West wrote. Right before she signed up to try the treatment, she found out she was pregnant, which meant that she couldn’t use the a numbing cream or painkiller before the treatment as doctors typically recommend, she says. That made for a super uncomfortable experience. “It was really rough and painful for me. It was honestly the most painful thing ever! It’s the one treatment that I’ll never do again.”

The procedure is risky too, which is not surprising if the devices are used with many clients and potentially not cleaned and disinfected properly. Microneedling devices used for these facials look like torture devices to me (see below).

CNN reported just a few days ago that a New Mexico firm called VIP Spa that sold vampire facials may have exposed clients to infectious agents including potential HIV and other viruses through questionable practices:

“Now the department (of health) is urging clients to visit the state’s Midtown Public Health Office this week for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C lab testing and counseling.”

Some clinics and docs offering vampire facials also sell other iffy things like unproven stem cell offerings too, which could pose risks of infections and other negative outcomes.

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√ About That Captain Kirk ‘Stem Cell Treatment’

Captain Kirk getting some amazing injection (probably not stem cells) from Dr. McCoy

When we mix celebrities like William Shatner who played Captain Kirk on the original Star Trek series with stem cells, things usually end badly.  For this reason when I read that Shatner had gotten a supposed stem cell treatment, I saw it as bad news. Like the arrival of a Borg ship.

Just one duduk masalah here is that Shatner’s getting unproven stem cells will almost certainly translate into many everyday people following suit. These people are likely to lose 10s of thousands of dollars and put themselves at risks of health problems.

Hopefully Shatner himself won’t suffer some major side effect. I wish him well even though in my view he shouldn’t be advertising stem cells in a sense.

I can’t help but be reminded of the classic line from Star Trek when Captain Kirk asks McCoy to do something impossible like reverse death or something beyond what a doctor normally does and McCoy says something along the lines of, “I’m a doctor, not a miracle worker!” However, I don’t think the “miracle worker” part ever actually was uttered by McCoy. I seem to remember one more like, “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!”

#ad Today I received restorative stem cells from my good friend Greg DiRienzo @ProgenaCell. The stem cells were manufactured by Invitrx here in So Cal. My friend Dr Mathi Senapathi gave the cells to me intravenously. Is it possible to turn back the clock? I will let you know.

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) May 31, 2019

What’s going on now?

Last week, Shatner tweeted (see above) about his personal experiment in this way:

“Today I received restorative stem cells from my good friend Greg DiRienzo at ProGenaCell,” Shatner tweeted. “The stem cells were manufactured by Invitrx here in So Cal. My friend Dr Mathi Senapathi gave the cells to me intravenously. Is it possible to turn back the clock? I will let you know.”

These names, other than ProGenaCell, did not ring an immediate bell for me so I had to look them up.

I couldn’t find that much about Greg DiRienzo (not to be confused via a professor in NY by a similar name), but over at Respectful Insolence in a post about Shatner’s stem cell adventure, we get this scathing bit:

“Not coincidentally, William Shatner’s friend Greg DiRienzo is the CEO and Founder of Integrative Cancer Centers of America; founder and current CEO of ProGenaCell; and the founder and CEO of Medici Integrative Health & Surgery Center, a bariatric surgery center in Tijuana, plus several other companies.

I don’t know if ProGenaCell’s cornucopia of quackery that it uses with its stem cell concoctions is as extensive (probably not), but “detox” is an enormous red flag.”

I’d say there are many red flags here. Respectful Insolence has more on Invitrx so check out the full article.

What is ProGenaCell?

It’s a stem cell clinic firm. Poking around their website led me to their page on stem cells, where we see in my opinion a chilling passage touting animal stem cells (xeno) amongst others. Wait, are they really injecting people with animal cells? It seems so based on this material from that page:

“Progenitor Xenotransplants and Cord Blood Cells are the stem cells of choice used by Progenacell Physicians. Most stem cell companies use one or the other, however Progenacell is the only company in the world that has perfected the use of both of these therapies combined as one treatment.”

Oh, geez.

And are they also doing allogeneic cord blood cell injections?

I wonder what Shatner had injected?

Hello, FDA?

Who is Dr. Mathi Senapathi?

It’s hard to be sure. I found that he seems to be VP of something in S. California called “Pathogenesys LLC”. Orac over at Respectful Insolence couldn’t find much either, but did say that this guy is part of something else called “Senapathi Biologicx Medicine in Indonesia.”

As with other celebrities another issue here that comes to mind for me and that Orac also mentioned is that Shatner may have gotten the cell injections for free or at a discounted price in exchange for free publicity for the firm. We’ve seen that kind of question arise in other celebrity stem cell cases like Gordie Howe and others including the guy Ben Greenfield who apparently got stem cells injected into his p3enis.

If I had to guess, I bet Shatner got free stems and something like $50K on top of that. It’s interesting that Shatner basically disclosed that his tweet was an advertisement by starting it was hashtag “ad”.

What would Spock say to all of this?

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