What a groundbreaking lawsuit against a stem cell clinic means for the future

A Tampa jury recently found the now-defunct Tampa Lung Institute guilty of engaging in “deceptive or unfair practices” while offering customers “worthless” stem cell therapy to treat an incurable lung disease.

Industry insiders call the unanimous verdict earlier this month in Tampa a landmark case in the fight to end misleading, unregulated and potentially risky stem cell therapy.

“I’m very happy because I hope no one else will be deceived like I was,” Marilyn Mazza, 85, said in response to the verdict.

A decade ago, Mazza, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, spent nearly $20,000 on stem cell treatments at the Institute after hearing a TV ad. Mazza is one of three named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit that was originally filed against the company in 2016.

“They promised that after their procedures I would run out of oxygen, and I definitely am not running out of oxygen. I am running on four liters (per minute) now,” Mazza explained.

As a result, Mazza joins more than 1,000 patients nationwide who are set to receive reimbursements after a $9 million verdict, with some patients receiving as much as $30,000. The jury verdict is one of the most expensive verdicts against a for-profit stem cell clinic in U.S. history.

The lawsuit centered on the company’s Tampa location. Patients alleged that between mid-2013 and mid-2016, the clinic offered them “sham treatments” based on “sham science and fraud,” according to the original complaint.

We’ve been sharing some of their stories since 2018. Desperate, sick and dying, who claimed to have fallen victim to the Lung Institute’s aggressive marketing tactics and boiler room sales of unproven stem cell therapy.

“It seemed like the day I got it, I started feeling worse,” Maureen Rosen told us in 2018. The former patient spent $7,500 treating her terminal lung disease.

Rosen died a few years after our interview.

Tammy Rivero told us how she mortgaged her home to pay for $8,000 worth of treatments that she says ultimately did not improve her health.

“I think it’s a load of bullshit,” she told us in 2020.

In 2018, Dorothy Carver told us how her husband William died of a heart attack just months after he also sought treatment for an incurable lung disease at a clinic.

“It didn’t get any better, it just got really worse,” she told us at the time.

Carver didn’t know about the recent conviction until we told her.

“That’s great news,” she said in response. “It brings some closure, but not a day goes by that I don’t think about him and miss him.”

“We certainly tried to shout from the mountaintops what was going on,” said attorney Ben Vinson Jr., who represented the victims. “The only thing they did at trial was take blood, turn it over and put it back in.”

At one point, the Lung Institute had about a half-dozen locations across the country. The Tampa location was considered its home base. The clinics have since been closed amid unresolved legal issues and media scrutiny.

Although neither the Lung Institute nor its lawyers responded to our repeated requests for comment on the ruling, in closing arguments the lawyers tried to argue that they had no obligation to tell clients that they had not conducted clinical trials to prove that their treatments worked. The lawyers also argued that the clients had signed statements consenting to the treatments.

Medical ethicists say the Florida case and its multimillion-dollar verdict serve as a reminder to consumers of an industry that holds promise but has yet to prove its worth in treating common diseases and disorders.

“There is enough evidence to pursue them in clinical trials, but we should not yet think of them as treatments that can be sold on the market,” explained Dr. Leigh Turner, a medical ethicist at the UCI School of Public Health in Irvine, California, who also gave evidence on behalf of the patients.

Turner hopes the Lung Institute ruling will also calm sentiment in the for-profit stem cell clinic market, which has grown rapidly over the past decade.

“We’ll see if it has an impact. One thing I can say is I hope it has an impact not just for the people involved in the class action lawsuit, but that it actually plays a broader role in terms of informing people how they can be exploited, helping people make more informed decisions and taking some of the bad operators out of the market,” he said.

It’s a lesson that Dorothy Carver and Marilyn Mazza spent thousands of dollars to teach and fought for almost a decade to prove.

“I’m glad it’s over,” Carver said. “Whenever I see something about stem cells, I just block it out of my mind. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“I believe that stem cells can be very helpful in the future, but this was a scam. We didn’t get the help we needed,” Mazza said.

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