Treatment: The Cork GP whose clinic has been used for the provision of a controversial unlicensed stem cell therapy has hit out at reports that he was charging huge fees for the treatment.
Dr John Dunphy of the Cork Road Medical Centre in Carrigaline said reports that Multiple Sclerosis patients were paying up to €30,000 for the treatment were "total and complete garbage".
In his first public comments on the controversy he also complained about "an orchestrated campaign" against him and his clinic.
Last month it emerged that the Irish Medicines Board, the agency with responsibility for the licensing of medical products and treatments in the State, was conducting an investigation into the provision of the stem cell therapy at his premises.
It was reported at the time that the treatment was being provided by a Swiss company called Advanced Cell Therapeutics (ACT).
"I have seen people who have been charged nothing and others who have been charged between €1,000 and €5,000," Dr Dunphy told The Irish Medical Times. "All payments go to Switzerland, to ACT," he added.
He said he could not comment on his own remuneration until the matter had been dealt with by the Medical Council.
In a letter to the Irish Medical Times he said neither Irish, European nor international law has been breached at his clinic.
"Mischievous misinformation has been peddled in relation to 'Umbilical Stem Cell Therapy' and the Swiss-based company, ACT. Grossly exaggerated prices have been reported when, in fact, ACT offers a price range to reflect the financial circumstances of individual patients," he wrote.
He went on to state that the stem cells used were derived exclusively from umbilical cords, they were donated, were tested for infectious diseases, and that each patient usually receives four injections of a single vial containing 1.5 million stem cells.
"ACT, a Swiss-based biotechnology company, has administered stem cells at 14 centres worldwide over the past five years with no negative side effects of any kind being reported," he added.
"Eighty different disease types have been treated. Clinical benefits have been reported in over 80 per cent of patients treated," the letter continued.
Irish patients as well as patients from the UK were travelling to his clinic for the treatment. The treatment was stopped, however, since an EU tissues directive was transposed into Irish law earlier this month. Dr Dunphy has now applied to the Irish Medicines Board for a licence, under the new regulations, to provide the treatment.
He said patients attending his clinic had shown "very dramatic results" over a short period.
However, experts argue that while stem cell research promises great things there are currently no proven stem cell treatments against any disease available anywhere in the world.
Dr Brian Sweeney, a consultant neurologist at Cork University Hospital and a member of the Irish Institute of Clinical Neuroscience, expressed serious concerns last month at reports of the treatment being provided in Cork. "There is no scientific evidence that this particular treatment, which supposedly involves stem cell material injected into the vein and which is then supposed to travel to the brain and repair the damage caused by MS, is in any way effective or safe," he said.