Justice Minister Andrea Orlando
told the Senate health committee Wednesday that the ministry
can't interfere with a court ruling that forced a hospital to
administer the controversial Stamina stem-cell treatment to an
ailing boy.
His statement came after a court ordered the treatment
administered to a child suffering from muscular dystrophy at
a hospital in northern Italy on Tuesday, despite the fact that
it has been discredited by many in the scientific community.
The Stamina treatment was administered on the orders of a
Sicilian court after the hospital in Brescia decided to suspend
the procedure because it had been called into doubt.
The justice ministry "cannot interfere with the court's
decisions. The judge has freedom of interpretation," Orlando
told MPs.
"However, no amount of court rulings can fill what is a
legislative void on this issue," he added.
The credibility of the Stamina treatment - which involves
extracting bone-marrow stem cells from a patient, supposedly
turning them into neurons by exposing them to retinoic acid for
two hours, and injecting them back into the patient - has long
been suspect, and last autumn the health ministry ruled that the
Stamina Foundation would no longer be allowed to test the
treatment on humans.
The foundation was also stripped of its non-profit status
after a study found the treatment was "ignorant of stem-cell
biology".
However some local judges have ruled in favor of its
application amid heavy pressure from advocates and the families
of patients.
So far only courts in Genoa and Turin have denied access to
the treatment, the justice minister pointed out.
Also on Wednesday, privacy watchdog agency director
Antonello Soro testified at the same committee hearing that
sensationalized media reports featuring prominently displayed
images of terminally ill children have clouded the issue of
whether or not the treatment is scientifically valid.
"Media have too often given in to the temptation
of...exploiting the image of sick children," Soro said.
"The right of ill minors not to have their disease put on
display has been violated...especially by online media," he
added.
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