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Another Adult Stem Cell Breakthrough: Lupus Successes

By Terry Vanderheyden

CHICAGO, February 2, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A young woman and lupus sufferer is praising a new adult stem cell treatment that she credits with giving back her life.

Edjuana Ross, now 33, was diagnosed with the autoimmune condition known as systemic lupus erythematosus – lupus for short – soon after graduating from high school. She was one of 48 people who received the experimental therapy – a stem-cell transplant from her own bone marrow.

Ross said she has been in remission since recovering from her stem cell treatment done in 2003. “I’m just trying to get used to being well, and it’s a very weird feeling,” she said, according to an Associated Press report. Thirty-three of the 48 patients with lupus who received the groundbreaking treatment from Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital have been symptom free ever since.

Ross and the others in the experimental group were among approximately five percent of lupus sufferers who have a form of the disease that responds poorly to standard therapy. The autoimmune process attacks vital organs such as the heart, brain, and kidneys, and can be fatal. The most common treatment, prednisone, also causes numerous side effects such as thinning bones and weight gain – high doses in Ross’s case also left her with diabetes.

Lead researcher in the study, Dr. Richard Burt, said he was pleased with the outcome. “It turned out very well, showing that we could do this safely,” he said. Lupus afflicts about 1.5 million Americans, 90% of them women.

Ross said that since the treatment she feels “110 percent better,” and that she looks forward to completing a master’s degree. “It gave me my life back,” she said.

While most disease research organizations such as Juvenile Diabetes, Multiple Sclerosis and the Canadian Cancer Society, continue to promote the use of living embryonic human beings for experimentation, the only success stories to date have all come from the use of adult stem cells. In research with embryonic stem cells, experiments with human patients have caused serious and permanent medical side effects.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and stem cell therapy proponent, Dr. James Sherley, declared last year that placing hope in embryonic stem cell research for disease cure is “pure folly.” “Embryonic stem cells cannot be used directly [because] they form tumours when transplanted into mature tissues,” he explained.

See the Journal of the American Medical Association report:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/295/5/527

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