Almost 4 weeks ago, I blogged about little Hailey Goranflo, 5, who went to China to receive Repair (Adult) Stem Cell treatment for her Batten Disease- a fatal, inherited disorder of the nervous system.  4 weeks ago, Hailey had received 40% of her stem cell therapy and had shown some improvement in her symptoms. Now, after her full Repair Stem Cell Treatment, she has shown incredible improvement! Don't tell Hailey's mother that Repair Stem Cells are "limited"! We now have another believer in Repair Stem Cells as well as a very happy mother:

Hailey, and her mom Miranda, have just returned from a seven week trip to China for the first round of treatment and all four members of the Goranflo family - Hailey, Miranda, Neil and Carter - are happy to finally be back under one roof.

"It was much more than we ever expected," said Miranda Goranflo.

She and Hailey returned home to Shepherdsville around 2:30 a.m. Thursday after seven weeks in Beijing, China.

"Going there, we weren't expecting very much. We didn't want to get our hopes up too high and be let down," said Miranda.

And they weren't. The Goranflo's say the decision to take Hailey to China to receive stem cell treatment that isn't available in the U.S. was the best one they could have made. (I agree- DM) They say Hailey's stronger and more alert. She's more relaxed and breathes better, without an oxygen machine. But the biggest improvement they have seen is the dramatic decrease in the number of seizures she now has.

"Before we left, she was having hundreds a day, so many that you couldn't even keep count. Now she has maybe 5, sometimes on a bad day she'll have ten seizures. It is an amazing improvement," says Miranda.

She says Hailey's treatment went beyond just stem cells. She had sessions with a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, daily massages and rigorous physical therapy.

"Now, when I play with her, sing to her, read to her she tries to vocalize to me. She just has a completely different facial expression her eyes just light up and just looks like she feels so much better," Miranda says.

AHHHH- A very happy story to run into the weekend!- DM

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Cameron Hardy is a 19 year old man living in Carson City, Nevada. Last year, he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Doctors say he needs a bone marrow (stem cell) transplant to save him.Unfortunately, they couldn't find a matching donor. This is the reason why I constantly implore my readers to register! register! register at http://www.marrow.org and maybe you will have the opportunity to save somebody's life. Despite all the success stories I show you here, there are many I can't tell you- the ones where a matching donor isn't found.  Therefore, the more people who register, the better chance these sick patients have.

Well, these days, bone marrow transplants aren't the only game in town. Now, we have cord blood stem cell transplants to work with too.  Since time was short, Cameron's doctors began searching cord blood registries.  Luckily, they have found a match, and now Cameron has a great chance to survive. The stem cell treatment is very similar to a bone marrow stem cell transplant-- if it goes according to plan-  the stem cells from the cord blood will survive in a patient's bone marrow and produce healthy white blood cells. Here is more:

Despite hundreds of people showing up for bone marrow testing on behalf of Cameron Hardy, no match was found. Now doctors have scheduled the Carson City 19-year-old for a cord blood transplant, his mother said Wednesday.


The transplant team (was) unable to locate a donor match for Cameron and were concerned at this point that timing was now their main focus. UCD began searching cord blood registries and came up with two that matched each other as well as being a good match for Cameron, Lynn wrote.

Lynn expressed her gratitude to the hundreds of people who showed up on June 22 to be tested for a bone marrow match for Cameron.

You all mean so much to us and we know you are all keeping your chins up with great faith and positive attitudes. Remember: Two Thumbs Up,as Cameron always says.

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My organization issued a press release today. I am quoted of course. Here is the teaser:

Aug. 26 -- The Repair Stem Cell Institute LLC (RSCI; http://www.RepairStemCells.org) reported today that Stanford University School of Medicine's recent discovery there may be limitations to the effectiveness of human therapies derived from embryonic stem cells (ESC) because the cells injected in mice stimulated the kind of immune rejection seen with transplanted organs clearly delivers a blow to proponents of embryonic stem cell research who continue to ballyhoo the promise of ESC when in effect, as the Stanford study showed, the transplanted stem cells were dead within about seven to 10 days.

Who knew you could fit so many words in just one sentence? Here's more:

According to Don Margolis (donmargolis@gmail.com; 214.556.6377), founder and chairman of the RSCI, "The new Stanford findings further confirm the futility of embryonics in human therapy despite what proponents of human ESC research have been promising, that transplanted ESC can mature into several different types of tissue. Those cells could not survive in the mouse, suggesting the same would likely occur in a patient." He noted a statement from Stanford radiologist Dr. Joseph Wu, part of the research team: "I think there's some promise [to human ESCs] but you don't want to be foolish and say these cells are going to cure things in the next five years."

Yes, you are all welcome to call or email me and I will be happy to respond.- DM

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Now that the Olympics are over, everyone is taking a look back at what happened- "What are the Top 10 moments?" "Who was the greatest athlete at the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008?" My answer to both those questions is not Michael Phelps or maybe Usain Bolt- my answer is Maarten van der Weijden's gold medal in the 10 km open water swim.

Who is that guy? And how do I pronounce his name? I can't pronounce his name either, but I'll be happy to tell you about him. Maarten was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukemia at the age of 19.  Given little chance for survival, Maarten was given a stem cell transplant.  Bingo! The stem cell therapy worked.  Bye Bye Leukemia! Maarten, now 27, has been off all medication for 3 years.

Read more about swimming's "Lance Armstrong":

Van der Weijden dedicated his gold medal to all who had donated money for cancer research. I am thrilled. Without their generous donations I might not be here, he said.

One battle had helped him to prepare for another. The leukaemia has taught me to think step by step, he said. When you are in hospital and feeling so much pain and feeling so tired, you don't want to think about the next day or week - you just think about the next hour. It teaches you to be patient when you are lying in a hospital bed and that was almost the same strategy I chose here, to wait for my chance in the pack.

Van der Weijden seized the day, tucked in to the finish lane with a two-metre advantage as his rivals headed across the course and maintained the lead over the final 100-metre sprint. The gold was his, 1.5sec ahead of Davies, with Lurz 0.5sec further adrift. The battling Briton said: His story is amazing and can inspire a lot of people. What he has achieved is phenomenal. -I'm inspired, aren't you? -DM

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There seems to be a never ending supply of  stories coming out about children who can't see due to Optic Nerve Hypoplasia and then off they go to China where they receive repair stem cell treatment . Optic Nerve Hypoplasia is when the optic nerve doesn't form correctly leaving a child blind. Until repair (adult) stem cell therapy came along, these blind children had no hope to ever see, there was no cure for this disorder.

This story reports that 17 blind children have gone to China to receive this repair stem cell therapy and that almost all of them have seen improvement in their sight. That is dynamite! Read about Cody Bend and his very happy parents:

"The first reaction we really noticed from Cody was toward the beginning of the treatments," his mother said. "I woke up when the sun was rising, and looked over at Cody's bed. He was sitting up Indian-style, wide-eyed, taking everything in. He was just looking all around!"

Cody and his family returned home June 21. Today, he is able to see well enough to pick out all his colors and play peek-a-boo.

"One of the first things we noticed was that his eyes don't shake anymore, which was a side effect of (ONH)," Jessie Fend said. "Then we noticed he was bringing everything within 2 inches of his face and looking at it!"

That's when they began teaching Cody the colors of a toy ring.

"We would tell him the color and then we would mix it with all the other colored rings, and he was able to find the color we taught him," Jessie Fend said. "We progressed from there and now he knows and is able to locate all his colors.

"He's also able to play peek-a-boo with us. I tell him to look at Mommy, and he gets within a few inches of my face, and when our eyes meet, he smiles."

When the Fends returned home, they met with the chief of ophthalmology at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh. Jessie Fend said the doctor was amazed and excited about Cody's improvements.

"We are having a new MRI done, and all new tests to see exactly where his sight is on the charts. But just from the doctor seeing us in his office, he already mentioned about possibly getting Cody fitted for glasses, which were never even an option before," Fend said.

"They say what sight the stem cells give Cody he won't lose because the stem cells attach themselves to his optic nerve and regenerate the nerve to grow," Jessie Fend said. "The improvement in sight is the new part of the optic nerve regenerating and making the connection to bridge the nerve between his eyes to his brain."

With the improvements they are seeing in Cody, the Fends are considering another round of treatments.

"Each round of stem cell treatments builds on the next, so pretty much the more treatments he receives, the better his vision gets," Fend said. "We are talking about going back -- we'd almost be crazy not to, because right now it's the best thing going in the entire world."

I couldn't have said it better than Mrs. Fend-  right now it is definitely the best thing going in the entire world. For more information about this repair stem cell treatment in China and other repair stem cell therapies, you are welcome to call me at 1-214-556-6377 or email me at don@repairstemcells.org  - DM

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