CHINA: China invests in medical tourism resort

 Medical tourism news23 April 2012  A Chinese town is to create an international medical tourism project for the hot spring resort of Ruzhou. The total investment is ＄400 million. Ruzhou Hot Spring Leisure Resort sits within the hot spring town, 27 kilometres away from Ruzhou city. The hot spring's water is crystal clear and smooth as silk. It contains over 50 salutary microelements and macro elements and is also a rare high-quality mineral water for medical use. Besides hydrotherapy, the resort will offer acupuncture, massages, and ultrasonic therapy. The key target market is from within China, plus visitors from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.  Despite government efforts to ban unapproved stem cell treatments, companies in China still offer them openly. In January, the Chinese Ministry of Health attempted to regulate the unapproved stem-cell tourism business in China, announcing rules such as required registration for organizations using stem cells in the clinic and a halt to any unapproved stem cell treatments. But not a single clinic has registered, and business is still booming.  The clinics, which operate openly offer expensive and unapproved stem cell treatments for Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and autism, among other disorders, and attract thousands of medical tourists from around the world. The Chinese health ministry has made several attempts to ban the treatments, including classifying stem-cell treatments as high risk and requiring the approval of a technical audit board, but they are ignored.  The clinics all claim success in treating patients, but none has published data from controlled clinical trials. The stem-cell clinics are aware of the government regulations. The Ministry of Health is trying to regulate the industry, but internal politics means that the clinics think they can safely ignore the law; particularly those with military or other government backing.