Video of Stem Cell Injection Alarms Doctors

by Rachael Robertson, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today June 9, 2023

Doctors have been raising questions about a video on social media of a physician allegedly injecting stem cells into the carotid artery of a fully awake patient.

A physician wearing blue nitrile gloves injects a needle into the neck of Chris Crotte, a professional wrestler known as "Super Beast." Crotte winces as the needle enters his skin. "It's not just a gimmick," he says to others in the room, adding jokingly, "don't bump the doctor," while the injection goes on for more than half a minute.

The physician administering the injection was identified as Alex Molina, MD, who works at stem cell clinics in the cities near Guadalajara, Mexico.

The full video is from a February 2021 Instagram post from Regenamex, a stem cell and regenerative medicine clinic in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where it appears Crotte is a familiar face.

However, the video gained traction this week when Don Buford, MD, the founder of Texas Orthobiologics, shared a screen recording of the video on LinkedIn. In Buford's post, Crotte receives another injection just below the naval.

Buford noted that the video portrayed Molina injecting Crotte's carotid artery with culture-expanded allogeneic stem cells.

"This video from regenamex.com shows an unguided carotid artery injection with blue nitrile gloves on an awake (hopefully very still) patient in an outpatient clinic. Anyone else doing this?" Buford asked his followers.

Regenamex is owned by Daniel Gilchrist, a bodybuilder and personal trainer, and the clinic hires doctors to perform procedures that allegedly have helped with "everything from spinal cord injury to multiple sclerosis," according to his LinkedIn profile.

In a blog post for a different stem cell company, Regenexx (not to be confused with Regenamex), Christopher Centeno, MD, the company's chief medical officer, pointed out many red flags around Regenamex as a business, as well as the injection video specifically.

"There is no fluoroscopy with contrast which would be standard of care in the United States or Europe for arterial injection," he wrote.

"The only physician who should ever do that is a board-certified and fellowship-trained interventional cardiologist," Centeno added.

In an interview with MedPage Today, Centeno noted that "direct injection of the carotid artery is rarely done because if you happen to knock off an arterial plaque, you can stroke the patient out. The risk of causing a catastrophic event with a blind injection of the carotid artery is high due to all of the other structures that you may inadvertently inject."

Leigh Turner, PhD, executive director of the University of California Irvine Bioethics Program, said Regenamex is like other stem cell clinics in making lofty claims despite limited evidence.

"Such clinics, whether they are based in Mexico, as Regenamex is, or in other countries, need to be subjected to more effective regulatory oversight and held to standards that protect patients from avoidable injuries, financial losses, and other harms," he told MedPage Today.

Paul Knoepfler, PhD, of the University of California Davis, who runs the stem cell and regenerative medicine blog The Niche, said that while the Regenamex video is shocking, it's also not surprising.

"We have seen so many risky stem cell-related procedures over the years leading to all kinds of harm like blindness and sepsis," he told MedPage Today. "Clinic operators often don't have the necessary training or experience to be doing stem cell injections, and the cell products being used are often produced or handled in substandard ways that boost risks."

"All kinds of things can go wrong with an improper neck injection procedure, including most simply infection or damage of tissues such as nerves," he added.

In the video, the stem cells were characterized as a lab-grown allogeneic product, which Knoepfler said adds risks like blood clots and unwanted tissue growth.

"I don't think many patients realize that this kind of procedure is so risky and has such a low chance of any benefit," he said.

As of press time, Regenamex has not returned a request for comment from MedPage Today.

Rachael Robertson is a writer on the MedPage Today enterprise and investigative team, also covering OB/GYN news. Her print, data, and audio stories have appeared in Everyday Health, Gizmodo, the Bronx Times, and multiple podcasts. Follow