HEALTH tourism – not always an apt expression – must be tempting for anyone desperate to cure an incapacitating condition. Only last week, we reported how an Inverness MS sufferer spent tens of thousands of pounds attending a clinic in Russia, where she received successful treatment.

That treatment has been backed by international studies and is used for certain cases by the NHS in England. However, regarding stem cell therapies in general, a plethora of potentially unsafe treatments is being offered in countries with looser medical regulation.

Now an international group of experts, including researchers from Edinburgh University, has called for a crackdown on unscrupulous advertising of unproven therapies that encourage misguided and potentially dangerous medical “tourism”. They are right to do so.

Desperate conditions encourage desperate measures, which can become more tempting when the approval processes for potential cures grind so exceedingly slow. But the processes are there for a reason, not the least of which could be discovering a potential treatment might only make things worse. There are unscrupulous practitioners around the world willing to risk that for others while making money for themselves. Their siren calls must be blocked so the tried, tested and approved can better be heard.