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Lots of news recently about storing stem cells taken from a baby's cord blood. There now seem to be three options when a woman has a baby:
- All of these new companies offering to store your baby's cord blood, offering the "security" of using perfectly matched stem cells should there be something wrong with your baby. This may cost the parents to the tune of around $2,000-$3,000. However, the parents of these Cerebral Palsy sufferers- Dallas Hextell, Chloe Levine, Maia Friedlander, and John Centrello are quite happy they stored their child's stem cells
- Another option when a baby is born is for the parents to donate their baby's cord blood stem cells to a public bank- where the stem cells may match with an unknown child stricken with Leukemia perhaps. This costs the parents nothing and has the reward of knowing you may be saving someone's life.
- The last option shouldn't even really be an option- throwing the cord blood away. Yes, it is the parents' rights to do whatever they wish to do with it, but it is a waste to simply throw something away that has no ethical issues and could possibly save someone's life.
Obviously, I recommend 1 or 2, but it is up to the parents obviously.
This article explores the issue in more depth concluding that donating is the better choice:
"The rates of actual use of the stored cord blood in private banks is minuscule; I discourage storage in private banks," he said. Donation to public cord blood banks, however, is extremely useful. Donation is free. These banks maintain high quality samples and can be accessed by any patient who needs it. While the likelihood of any person using their own cord blood may be low, the likelihood of someone's cord blood being used in the general public is markedly higher.Also, here is a very lopsided
article in Newsweek called "When Medicine Meets Marketing- The business of storing umbilical-cord blood is growing.
Is salesmanship outpacing science?" Yes, just by that subtitle, you can see how "neutral" the story is going to be.
The article basically implies that not only are these private storage companies expensive for cord blood stem cells- they are saying that even on the small chance that a child may need his own stem cells for something like Cerebral Palsy- that it is "unproven" to work. Ridiculous. The article concentrates on Dallas Hextell (one of the kids I mentioned above) and then asks how the other kids treated with their own cord blood stem cells are doing. If the Newsweek reporter had done a little more research, she would have dug up the 4 kids I did who were part of the same study as Dallas Hextell. In other words- this 74 year old old man did more research than a Newsweek reporter. It is no wonder that people are now tuning out the mainstream media.
One of the commenters to the articles said it best-
Posted By: aussie142 @ 12/17/2008 8:50:19 PM
It seems like you have a problem with the future of medical research on this subject,and by reading this article,you seem very negatively one sided against this registry.I dont know anybody personally with CP (cerebral palsy) ,but being a paramedic,responding to incidents to help these patients,and seeing the devasting effects of this on the patients as well as the care givers,I would think anything that can be done to "heal" or just slow down the progression of this Illness,should be done.Wether its public or private,stem cell research is just touching the surface,and I beleive that medicine will find out more benefits ,probably using a pts own stem cells,that we have no idea about right now.I know we dont know a real lot on this subject,but come on,wouldnt you want everything done that could be done?What if we didnt have a system in place to bank your childs own stem cells,to find out in 10 or 20 yrs from now,we can cure cancer,dementia,or who knows what else utilizing your OWN stem cells from cord blood?Shame on your 1 sided negative reporting skills here,Im glad Im not a journalist....!!!!