REGENERATIVE MEDICINE: Did Stem Cell Therapy Repair Bartolo Colon’s Broken Pitching Arm? “In Colon’s case, the treatment was carried out in the Dominican Republic–not because the treatment is illegal in the States (it’s not) but because Colon lives there–by Dominican doctors and a Florida surgeon named Joseph Purita, whose regenerative medicine clinic has treated several other professional athletes. . . . Purita’s procedure involved removing stem cells from Colon’s fat and bone marrow and injecting them into his elbow and shoulder to repair ligament and rotator cuff damage. It’s a procedure that hasn’t been put through rigorous clinical reviews, and other physicians say there’s no conclusive evidence that it works. The MLB, fighting a constant uphill battle to stay current regulating new performance enhancing drugs and supplements, doesn’t even have an official opinion–much less a rule–on such treatments derived from one’s own stem cells.”
Well, I hope it works. Faster, please, and all that.