Stem cells for knee arthritis – snake oil, quackery or fraud?
I often get asked by patients considering knee replacement surgery if stem cells are any good for knee arthritis. My view is that they are snake oil, quackery and possibly fraud.
Clark Stanley was known in the wild west as the ‘The Rattlesnake King’ travelling the country with an elaborate show including rattlesnakes. He spruiked the benefits of his snake oil as a cure all for many conditions including ‘rheumatism’ an old term for painful joints. He eventually came unstuck when his snake oil was tested by the US government and found to not contain any snake oil. Since then the term ‘snake oil’ has come to mean any false cure.
