Frequently Asked Questions

What inspired this documentary project?

Eric Merola is passionate about promising scientific innovations and discoveries that have the potential to help others. Sometimes a scientific discovery enters society that is both controversial and directly conflicts with the currently held scientific beliefs and the profit structure of that system within the medical industry (and in the case of fetal stem cells, they conflict with widely held religious beliefs as well). Eric finds this aspect to be an important one and feels an obligation through his investigative journalistic work, as well as his artistic expression as a filmmaker, to help the general public learn about these issues to help them make their own informed decisions.

In short, many people who had seen Eric’s previous work, who claimed to have been successfully treated by using fetal stem cells, had emailed Eric enough to peak his interest. In the summer of 2014, Eric set out to investigate this story: starting with Stem Cell Of America in Tijuana (do not go there, scroll down for more), which led me to discover the world’s pioneers of this therapy at EmCell in Kyiv, Ukraine. 

I would like to seek fetal stem cell therapy, where can I get it?

EmCell in Kyiv, Ukraine is the only place on earth where fetal stem cell therapy is available. Do not go to Stem Cell of America, they no longer offer fetal stem cells. See my lecture on this. Listen to my podcast on this. 

I have received this therapy myself five times since 2016. I am a documentary filmmaker, not a doctor. It would be inappropriate for me to give anyone medical advice. But, I can vouch first-hand for the treatment and how it affected me. I also consistently follow patients beyond just those who I followed for this documentary series. Listen to podcasts with more patients. 

While fetal stem cell research is legal in the United States, it is not approved by the American Food & Drug Administration for clinical use. Not because it failed the regulatory testing, but because there hasn’t been any permission to begin much regulatory testing in the USA.

All of the patients we are documenting for this project sought this therapy by leaving the United States to areas of the world where it is legally allowed to be administered. Currently, the only place it is available is EmCell in Kyiv, Ukraine. 

Fetal stem cell therapy is not legal in Mexico. It is only legal and regulated in Kyiv, Ukraine. 

The country of Ukraine is the only country in the world where the clinical application of fetal stem cells (administered to humans) is legal.

What is the difference between “Fetal Stem Cells” and the rest? 

There is much confusion in the media as well as the scientific community as to what defines a “fetal stem cell”.

Fetal stem cells are not the same as Embryonic or Adult stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are harvested from a 5-day-old embryo after artificial fertilization. Adult stem cells are harvested from adults, and given back to the adult (usually taken from their fat or bone marrow). Fetal Stem Cells are harvested from a 7 to 12 week-old fetus. However, some of the scientific community still considers stem cells harvested from a fetus as “Adult”, creating more confusion.

Many people confuse “Embryonic” stem cells with “Fetal” stem cells, but they aren’t the same type of stem cell. To make matters more confusing, many asian and middle-eastern cultures do not have a vocabulary word for “fetal” which means they define both Embryonic and Fetal as “Embryonic”.

Embryonic stem cells can also be quite dangerous as they as known to cause tumors. However, fetal stem cells have had no recorded cases of anyone getting a tumor from fetal stem cell injections.

Watch the clip explaining this from The God Cells, here.