I tried both fresh and dry cell therapy when I was a student in Germany in the 1980s, but noted no benefit after getting pancreatic cells i.m. from a placental goat. However, after injection of retinal cells from a placental dog, I experienced a distinct sharpening of vision, which lasted for only about three days. This is a well-known phenomenon among fresh cell therapy clinics, called the ‘Abklingungseffect,’ or ‘ringing off effect,’ and to counter it most clinics re-inject the patients every three days or so to produce a more lasting improvement. I have never suffered any negative side-effects from these interventions.

Fresh cell therapy has a bad name in part since it is still associated today with its precursor rejuvenation movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Drs. Brown-Sequard and Voronoff used to insert monkey testicle slices in narrow surgical incisions in the testicles of their patients. Most commentators assume this treatment must have been useless and its apparent effects merely psychological, given the hyperacute rejection that they suppose must have followed this primitive xenotransplantation, though there may have been some effect, given that the sertoli cells of the testes act as a barrier against the immune system. Pope Pius XII was injected with cells from simian testicles in 1953 by the founder of fresh cell therapy, Prof. Paul Niehans, which further reinforced in the public imagination the nexus between fresh cell therapy, rejuvenation therapy, and Serge Voronoff.

I remember the first time I ran into the effect of national culture on therapy. Thirty years ago Japanese diabetics were not allowed to self-inject insulin. They had to go to their doctor every day for their injections.

I agree with you that the concerns about pig tissue are overblown. When I see LCT demonstrate that their pig islets are free of every known dangerous virus, and the reply is, what about unknown viruses?, I just want to pull my hair out. The dangers of islets made through manipulation of stem cells strike me as underestimated as the dangers of pig islets are overestimated. I have some knowledge of what they do to cells in their laboratories. In general, the more processing of cells the weirder the cells get. That’s why the autologous cell devices invented by our sister company Hanuman Medical have such short processing times. In fact, if I were presented with Islet Sheets containing pig islets and Islets Sheets containing stem cell derived islets, I would ask to be implanted with the pig Islet Sheets.

In my own business planning I am assuming pig islets will be expensive. At least half the expense will be regulatory, not manufacture. Our first clinical products will use Islet Sheets with primary human islets, the sort used in the Edmonton Protocol. Eventually I expect to sell human stem cell-derived Islet Sheets. A period in the middle when pig islets make sense is possible but uncertain. We keep an eye on LCT and wish them luck in demonstrating safety and efficacy with encapsulated pig islets.