Alumni Event – October 27th 2017
Guest speaker: Associate Professor Megan Munsie PhD
Megan Munsie with Karin Tiedemann at the lunchtime meeting, in the Children’s Hospital Foundation.
“Cashing in on hope: the big business of selling stem cells”
Associate Professor Munsie gave a fascinating talk to a group of about 30 Alumni members and partners.
As head of Stem Cells Australia’s Education in the Ethics, Law & Community Awareness Unit, she is responsible for promoting public debate and understanding about important scientific, ethical, legal and societal implications arising from stem cell research.
The huge amount of media publicity involving unproven therapies using stem cells and often involving very substantial costs for families and travel to distant destinations / countries for treatment was discussed.
The lack of well designed clinical trials or any solid evidence of efficacy was highlighted. Nonetheless there is real promise that such therapies will have a place in the foreseeable future for some conditions.
At the present time much of the media “hype” is clearly “Fake News”??