Thanks for the reply and well articulated answer.


USADA is a little vague on their stance, but that's partially because 'stem cell therapy' is such a broad term. USADA simply says, "Stem cell injections may or may not be prohibited, which depends on how the product is manipulated or modified for use." and that you should contact them for specifics.


Quite definitive.


This sort of mirrors what's allowed in the USA. Having a licensed physician in the USA take your blood, toss it in a centrifuge to make it 'platelet-rich' and inject it into your own joint all in one appointment is okay and USADA even mentions that as an example. If those 'stem cell injections' involve cells that are manipulated via culturing, adding 'things' from other sources to the mix, taken outside of the clinic, or a couple other areas, then they are definitely not allowed according to the FDA. I have little doubt that USADA would side with the FDA and say that any of those 'treatments' that you have to go to the Cayman Islands, North Korea, Russia, Japan or Germancy for (and are also being advertised by the person representing a Cayman Islands beauty clinic) would not be okay for regulated athletes. The problem is that both are considered stem cell therapy.


Stem cell therapy encompasses many things. There's the above mentioned legal-in-the-USA platelet-rich plasma (spinning down the patient's own blood and putting it right back into them in a specific joint). There's taking cells from a patient in a variety of manners, adding things or culturing the the cells in a lab and then eventually injecting the new compound back in the patient (not legal in the USA). Another service advertised in the initial post (allogeneic), which seems to go against the USADA statement, involves putting other people's (or animal's in some cases in the ol' Cayman Islands...moo) into a patient and is also not legal as a treatment in most of the world. There's also plenty of other things in the 'stem cell therapy' world, but these are probably the most relevant to the sports/athletic world.

Part of how these clinics get their start is because most of the treatments are labeled as cosmetics and are not really regulated by anybody. Exactly like supplements, the FDA is hands off. We have sure had the supplements talk(s) on St quite a bit. It's way easier for USADA/WADA to publish a list of the exact compounds not allowed to be found in the body, even if they were mistakenly included in a perfectly legal (not to be confused with regulated) supplement. That's kind of how the stem cell based cosmetic industry has operated. There's plenty of reports online about these beauty clinics doing treatments that cost more than my car and ending with pretty weird results. Once they become a drug (in this case), the USA stuff gets the smackdown by the FDA.

It could be interesting to ping a USADA rep and ask about these specific treatments not allowed in the USA, like the ones advertised above, being allowed for athletes complying with the USADA drug testing (IRB approved??) protocols. Maybe that should be the deciding factor?


I do appreciate the kind words and clever reply from the Da Vinci rep. That was really good.

Edit: Forgot an e in allogeneic