Politics
Friday November 18, 2005
Umbilical Cord Stem Cells Offer Hope to MS-Stricken Teen
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By Terry Vanderheyden
INVERNESS, Scotland, November 18, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A British teen who has multiple sclerosis now claims she is walking after umbilical cord stem cell therapy she traveled abroad to receive.
Wheelchair-bound since 2003, 19 year-old Amanda Bryson told The Herald that she has been walking daily since immediately after her treatment from a private clinic in the Netherlands Friday.
Believed to be the only British beneficiary of the umbilical cord stem cell therapy, Bryson said this week, "It sounds shocking, but I could feel the difference after just five minutes. Since the treatment I have been transformed. I am doing things I couldn't do a year ago. Hopefully I will be fully recovered in a year."
The private treatment from the PMC Clinic in Rotterdam cost Bryson and her family £12,500 ($21,500 USD).
"Within 10 minutes after the treatment I went to the bathroom on my wheelchair, I went to stand up and I thought I was jumping off my chair," she told the BBC news. "It felt absolutely fantastic, brilliant. I thought at first 'this is in my mind,' but I spoke to the nurse who told me it happens, they've seen it happen plenty of times. That's the moment where it just filled me with hope for the future."
Bryson applauded the therapy that she said, because it was harmlessly derived from babies' umbilical cords after birth, was of no harm to them or anyone.
Bryson described the procedure: "Stem cells were injected into a solution which was put into my arm," she said, according to a Daily Record report. "Then, two doses were injected into the back of my neck to tackle the damage to my spine and brain. Then, there were three further injections into my belly. I was in the clinic for three to four hours."
"The stem cells are there to repair the damage to my cells," she added. "It is a progressive thing and could take months. But, considering there is a huge difference in just a few days, I am very hopeful. If the treatment is not working the way the clinic thinks it should, I will return for a top-up in six months. But the doctors are convinced I won't need it. They say I should make at least an 80 per cent recovery."
In an interview in 2003 with Dr. Peter Hollands, Scientific Director of Cells for Life, a private cord blood bank in Markham Ontario, LifeSiteNews.com asked him to comment on the widely held belief that embryonic stem cells might work better than umbilical stem cells, such as those from cord blood. Dr. Hollands said "Why may they work better? We do not even know if they (embryonic stem cells) will work at all! The public must know that adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells are available, proven and ready to use for a range of diseases. We must get away from this idea of the promise of embryonic stem cells and look at the realities of adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells. Embryonic stem cells have yet to be used to treat any form of disease."
Dr. Hollands also disagreed with those who contend there is a great need to continue study of embryonic stem cells. "We should focus our attention on the most readily available and usable type of cells and these are adult and umbilical cord stem cells. Embryonic stem cells at present are largely political rhetoric and scientific hype. Adult and umbilical cord blood stem cells are proven and ready to use. The public needs to know this," he said.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Umbilical Cord Stem Cells Save Teen's Life: 60 Minutes II
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/nov/01112904.html
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