India’s apex medical ethics board has cautioned that stem cell therapy is not recommended as a treatment for autism amid long-standing concerns that private clinics that claim they have effective treatment are exploiting affected families.

The Ethics and Medical Registration Board (EMRB) of the National Medical Commission, the country’s top regulatory body for medicine, has also said any promotion or advertisements of stem cell treatment for autism would be “considered as professional misconduct”.

“There is as yet insufficient and inadequate scientific evidence on (the) efficacy of stem cell therapy in autism spectrum disorders,” the EMRB said, in line with guidelines from the Indian Council of Medical Research and other international agencies. The EMRB had asked a panel of experts to review evidence on stem cell therapy for autism spectrum disorders amid concerns among sections of medical researchers about “predatory marketing practices and exploitation of families” in the absence of good quality scientific evidence.

The expert panel cited, among other studies, observations by Antonio Narzisi, a child psychiatry specialist in Italy, who had cautioned in a medical journal earlier this year that offering stem cell therapy for autism spectrum disorders in the current state of scientific research is “clearly unethical”. “Further research needs to be conducted,” the expert panel said in its report submitted to the EMRB, while calling for rigorous trials to explore the safety and efficacy of stem cell therapy in autism.

The document, intended to serve as a position statement, comes at a time private clinics are offering stem cell therapy at costs that range up to lakhs of rupees, luring patients through websites with claims they have effectively treated children with autism.

A Mumbai-based stem cell clinic claims that it has “effectively treated” over 1,800 cases. A Bangalore-based stem cell clinic claims over 1,000 children with autism have achieved “significant behavioural improvement” through its interventions, including regenerative therapy. The website of one treatment service provider claims “people from all around the world prefer India for autism stem cell treatment packages because they are almost 70 per cent lower than the cost in western countries such as the US where the cost is over $45,000.

This newspaper tried to seek responses to the EMRB-NMC position statement from three clinics — one in Mumbai, one in Bangalore, and one in the National Capital Region — that offer stem cell treatment for autism. Spokespersons for the Bangalore and Mumbai clinics declined comment. The Delhi clinic did not respond to phone calls. The Indian Council of Medical Research had in 2017 released guidelines on stem cell research to curb what its officials said was the “indiscriminate use of stem cells” for medical disorders without evidence for efficacy or safety of the treatment.