‘Patients should not pay for stem cell clinical trials’

MANILA, Philippines -A national scientist and recipient of this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award has maintained that patients should not be charged for stem cell therapy clinical trials.

Ernesto Domingo, University Professor Emeritus at the University of the Philippines, also said it is unethical to do a clinical trial if there is no potential that it would be effective and those behind a clinical trial must be responsible for the patients “in case something happens to them.”

“If you are introducing something that has no evidence for what you are claiming, then it should not really be given in the first place, regardless of whether it is free or not,” Domingo said.

“If you are going to do research and you don’t have the money for this, by all means don’t do the research,” he added. “Nobody is questioning this, that you are not supposed to charge the patients for those trials.”

Domingo also stressed that funding should not be an issue if the research really has a potential.

“The way out there is you apply to the proper agencies because if you have a reasonably good proposal, I don’t see why you cannot get funded,” he noted.

Domingo is one of the recipients of the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s version of the Nobel Peace Prize, for “his exemplary embrace of the social mission of medical science and his profession, his steadfast leadership in pursuing ‘health for all’ as a shared moral responsibility of all sectors, and his groundbreaking and successful advocacy for neonatal hepatitis vaccination, thereby saving millions of lives in the Philippines.”

A liver specialist and a medical educator, Domingo was also named a national scientist by virtue of Malacañang Proclamation 1979 on Jan. 14, 2010.

According to the Department of Science and Technology’s National Academy of Science of Technology, among Domingo’s outstanding contributions are the “elucidation of the nature of schistosome granuloma and its role in hepatosplenic disease, the pathophysiology of hepatosplemic Schistosomiasis japonica in humans, the epidemiology and control of Hepatitis B and the pathophysiology, clinical behavior and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma in Filipinos.”

“Results of his hepatitis research have been utilized in the formulation and implementation of policies and programs of the Department of Health and private sector on Hepatitis B immunization and routine Hepatitis B and C screening of blood for transfusion,” the National Academy of Science and Technology said.