With the government cracking down last year on easy organ transplants for foreigners, the Associated Press comes out with a detailed look at the next biggest trend in medical tourism to China: stem cell treatment for desperate nerve disorder patients. Via Newsday:

Jim Savage, a Houston man with paralysis from a spinal cord injury, says he can move his right arm. Penny Thomas of Hawaii says her Parkinson’s tremors are mostly gone. The parents of 6-year-old Rylea Barlett of Missouri, born with an optical defect, say she can see.

But documentation is mostly lacking, and Western doctors warn that patients are serving as guinea pigs in a country that isn’t doing the rigorous lab and human tests that are needed to prove a treatment is safe and effective. [Full Text]

See also Danwei’s first post on the topic in 2005: “Stem cell treatment in China: the first glowing report.”

[Image: Staff at a Beike stem cell facility in Hangzhou display an unknown treatment substance, from the Beike Biotech website.]