PROFESSOR Robert Winston gently holds the hand of mother Yvette McGeehan as she cries over the loss of her son.
She had twins Dominic and Rebecca through IVF treatment but, before he was eight, Dominic contracted meningitis and fell into a permanently-awake coma.
The family tried everything to bring him back and, as a last resort, found a doctor in Dominica – one of more than 200 million on the internet offering 'stem cell cures'.
Foetal cells were injected into Dominic's brain, but despite an initial improvement he died not long afterwards.
In SuperDoctors, a new three-part series for BBC One, Winston – Chancellor at Sheffield Hallam University – has set out to tackle some of the most controversial new medical frontiers, from expensive robotic surgery to improvised treatments in Africa.
The episode on stem cells reveals the unproven treatment could have contributed to Dominic's death and the medical expert issues a stark warning to the medical profession against making unfounded claims.
"That's a real issue for medical tourism," says 68-year-old Winston.
"I think every effort should have been made to dissuade the McGeehans, but Yvette was absolutely focused on Dominic and for her, as she says to the camera: 'We wanted our son back'.
"You can't deal with that emotion rationally, so you've got to do two things – educate people more about the limitations of expectation and equally you've also got to educate the profession to be much more stringent about how it presents things it cannot prove."
SuperDoctors is, in Winston's words, "a bit unusual" for a BBC science programme.
"We raise a lot of uncomfortable issues.
"It's very critical, very thought-provoking, clearly controversial – and one of the most serious programmes the BBC have done this year, so I'm very pleased to be involved in it."
The robotics episode throws up the ever-present question of how the NHS should be spending its money: "We see surgery which probably doesn't work, on the base of the brain, which is the most dangerous area of the body.
"The surgeon with this £12million piece of equipment abandons it and goes on to operate by hand. Of course, he gets the result he needs and no harm's done, but you have to ask if it's justified to spend all that money on this massive machine."
"Maybe we should spend a bit more time thinking about how we might help healthcare in places like Africa more effectively, without spending vast sums."
Winston has become a BBC stalwart, as recognisable as Sir David Attenborough and Bruce Forsyth, and made it his lifetime's work to make science more accessible.
Throughout 15 TV series, the moustachioed expert has explored every aspect of medicine from child development, in the ongoing Child Of Our Time, to what makes us tick in the Bafta award-winning The Human Body.
"I don't think there's any point in doing a programme if you don't learn something," he says. "That's the reason for doing telly for me.
"I'm coming at these things with a reasonably open mind.
What do you think? Add your comments below.
READ MOREMain news indexYour letters.
FeaturesMore Rotherham newsMore Doncaster newsMore Barnsley newsCheck out the very latest on South Yorkshire's roads - including live traffic cameras on Sheffield's commuter routes - with our Traffic sectionLatest sport. The full article contains 563 words and appears in Sheffield Star newspaper.
