And, in Bulgaria, even more stem cell Götterdämmerung. The entire board of Sofia's university hospital has been sacked over a scandal involving fraudulent stem cell treatment. This was followed by the resignation of the country's deputy health minister, Matey Mateev, whose 21-year-old son was also implicated. According to Bulgaria's largest newpaper, Trud, patients were told that they would receive bone marrow transplants from a matched donor at US$3,000 per procedure. Some patients were told that this treatment was their only hope of being cured. In fact, they were given their own bone marrow, which was quite useless as a therapy. Hospital doctors defended themselves by claiming that the procedure was part of "stem cell research". Mr Mateev backs them up, saying that they "are working on new approaches in medicine". ~ BMJ, Aug 15