About a month ago, I wrote about seeing an ad regarding stem cell treatments for Parkinson’s Disease. Then I got busy planning, carrying out, and recovering from my Nebraska State Vacation, so I haven’t followed up on the stem cell treatments. Now I shall. I have no doubt that I’d like to try the treatment, but I have two main concerns that are preventing me from moving forward:

1. All the information I’ve seen has only come from one source – Stem Cell of America’s web site. Since they are the ones who would be collecting $15,000 to perform the procedure, they can’t (or at least, shouldn’t) be considered unbiased. So, I just need to do some digging on the web to try to find some independent reviews. That is, if I can get past concern number 2.

2. The procedure is performed in Mexico. The company’s office is in San Diego, but they pick you up in a van and drive you across the border to Tijuana. When I was first looking at their web site, this had me mildly concerned. Shortly after that (as you probably all know), four Americans were kidnapped in Mexico, apparently having ben mistaken for Haitian drug dealers. I don’t think anybody would mistake me for a Haitian, but this did bring my level of concern up a few notches. So, I checked the U.S. State Department’s web site on foreign travel. For the state of Baja California (where Tijuana is located), the U.S. State Department advises Americans to “Reconsider travel due to crime and kidnapping.” And all this time I thought kidnapping WAS a crime. They go on to say, “Of particular concern is the high number of homicides in the non-tourist areas of Tijuana.” Then, while I was in Nebraska, I heard this little factoid one morning while watching either The Today Show or Good Morning America: Accoring to the FBI, there are 550 Americans missing in Mexico. For crap’s sake, I drove through whole COUNTIES in Nebraska that don’t have 550 people in ’em!

Ultimately, I concluded that I will only resort to this treatment if I can find a safer place to get it, or if I can get my hands on a cyanide pill.