Michael Hiltzik: Tragic results of stem cell 'cures'
Medical regulators have been warning that the downside of unproven stem cell treatments isn't merely that they won't work, but that they can be life-threatening.
A team of Canadian physicians has just reported an especially gruesome example of what can go wrong when desperate patients chase after last-ditch cures in what's known as stem cell tourism. Their subject is a 38-year-old Newfoundland man who became a paraplegic after a trampoline accident at the age of 20 injured his spinal column.
Six years later, he
