Gene Therapy for Older Patients via Medical Tourism
A new foundation is offering older patients gene therapy outside of regular clinical channels. The treatments have not been approved by national medicines regulators.
The KHL Foundation, founded by Ken Scott and Helga Sands, is launching a program in which older adults travel to clinics in other countries for experimental gene therapy. These are treatments not yet authorised in countries such as the United States or most of Europe. The foundation presents the program as a way to provide access to interventions that would otherwise take years to become available.
Scott has been active in the longevity sector for years and says he has been self-experimenting with such treatments for some time. The initiators argue that existing regulation moves too slowly for people who are ageing now and cannot wait for approved therapies.
What are the risks?
Gene therapy outside a controlled clinical setting carries serious risks. Without controlled conditions, it is difficult to know whether a treatment works or what the long-term side effects might be. In older adults, these concerns are compounded by the effects of aging: a less resilient immune system (the system that identifies and attacks foreign substances) and a higher likelihood of unexpected reactions.
Medical tourism for experimental treatments is not new. But organising it into a structured program targeting a specific demographic is a new step. The question is who bears the risk if something goes wrong, and whether participants receive sufficient information to make an informed choice.
Regulation lags behind
The longevity sector is growing rapidly. So is the grey zone between clinical research and commercial application. National regulators are not yet equipped for it. That makes it hard for consumers to assess the quality and safety of such offerings.
Whether the KHL program will produce usable data on effectiveness is unclear. Without standardised measurement and a control group, results are scientifically difficult to interpret. That is precisely the criticism that has long been levelled at self-experimentation in the longevity world.
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