The conversation around regenerative medicine in India has taken a sharp turn. The Supreme Court recently delivered a landmark ruling barring stem cell therapy as a treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). According to the Autism Research Institute, ASD is a developmental condition where symptoms typically begin to surface within the first three years of a child’s life. The keyword here is ‘spectrum’, as it is a diverse range of experiences. It means autism manifests in different forms and varying levels of severity for everyone. In simpler terms, if you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met just one person with autism. Every individual brings their own unique set of strengths, specific symptoms, and personal challenges to the table, making a ‘one-size-fits-all’ medical approach, especially unproven therapies, impossible and misleading. The Supreme Court called the use of stem cell therapy outside of approved clinical trials ‘unethical’ and ‘medical malpractice’, echoing a long-standing warning from the medical community that stem cells are not a ‘miracle cure-all’.
