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Texas Gov. Rick Perry is making medical news this month with his announcement that he received an infusion of adult stem cells to speed recovery from back surgery.

Perry underwent a spinal fusion procedure from Stanley C. Jones, MD, a Houston orthopaedic surgeon. But it wasn’t as routine as it sounds. During the operation, Jones gave Perry an infusion of adult stem cells in an effort to speed recovery.

The stem cells were isolated from Perry’s own fat, obtained via liposuction. The Texas Tribune reports that Perry’s cells were “cultured” in a Texas laboratory that is a branch of South Korea’s RNL BIO. Jones told the Texas Tribune that he’d gone to Japan to receive RNL BIO stem cells for his own arthritis, and that he was “effectively cured.”

RNL BIO is run by veterinarian Ra Jeong Chan DVM, PhD. In 2009, RNL claimed to have cloned puppies from stem cells. The firm runs a number of stem-cell clinics in China and elsewhere, including an anti-aging clinic in Mexico. It says it has completed a phase 1 clinical trial of Astrostem, a fat-cell-derived stem-cell treatment for spinal injury. No results have yet been reported in the medical literature.

According to the Texas Tribune, Jones claims that the stem-cell treatment he gave Perry is without risk. That is emphatically not the opinion of Farshid Guilak, PhD, director of orthopaedic research at Duke University. In 2001, Guilak’s team discovered that human fat contains cells capable of becoming cartilage.

“This is incredibly risky,” Guilak said in a telephone interview. “The chance it will work in the way it is being tried now is minimal. This type of arbitrary stem cell injection is really unlikely to help anyone.”

The stem cells from fat aren’t the same as the “pluripotent” stem cells, derived from embryos or by manipulation of adult cells. They are cells likely in the process of becoming fat cells, but still capable of becoming bone, muscle, cartilage, and perhaps other cells.

Guilak calls the use of such cells “irresponsible” until they’ve been carefully tested in clinical trials and evaluated by the FDA.

But U.S. clinics offering this and other “stem-cell” treatments operate in several states. The FDA would like to close them, as it sees these treatments as unproven drugs. The doctors who run the the clinics say their medical licenses give them the right to treat patients as they see fit, as long as they use the patients’ own cells. The issue is in litigation. Meanwhile, the clinics stay open.

Guilak warns patients not to believe that these treatments are harmless. He notes that stem cells taken from fat and injected into the bloodstream can grow new tissues anywhere — including the lung and liver, where they are most likely to land after injection.

“It is a lot more complicated than we thought at first, when we thought the stem cells would know where to go and just home in and become the right kind of cell,” Guilak says. “But that isn’t true — although that doesn’t mean they don’t have a lot of potential.”

Fat-derived stem cells actually can do more than just turn into other tissues. They also have anti-inflammatory properties. When given the right chemical signals and cultured in the right way, animal studies show that the cells can reduce arthritis-related swelling and help the body repair itself.

It’s a promising treatment, but rushing it to clinics isn’t the most efficient way to find out how well it works and whether it’s safe.