Dr. Neil Riordan on health: what the evidence says · JRE #1066

What the evidence says 01 / RECORD

Riordan's company did complete and publish a small stem cell trial in multiple sclerosis: a 2018 paper in the Journal of Translational Medicine describes 20 subjects who received intravenous umbilical-cord mesenchymal stem cell infusions, with statistically significant improvements reported on some disability and quality-of-life measures at one month. However, the study was explicitly designed and labeled by its own authors as a safety and feasibility study, not an efficacy trial: it was open-label, uncontrolled, had no placebo or comparator arm, and enrolled only 20 patients, a sample size too small to draw reliable conclusions about a chronic, relapsing-remitting disease with substantial natural fluctuation. The paper's own conclusion states only that "potential therapeutic benefits should be further investigated," not that they were established. The study, and a subsequent correction issued in 2021, drew published concerns from other researchers about cost, transparency, and research integrity, to which Riordan and a co-author formally responded. Riordan is a co-founder and officer of the Stem Cell Institute/MediStem Panama, the same for-profit entity that performed the infusions and sells this treatment to paying patients, meaning the trial was not independently conducted. As of the podcast, the described "statistically significant" findings had already been published years earlier (2018, corrected 2021) contrary to the "submitted for publication" framing, and remain unreplicated by an independent, controlled trial.