There are some reasons why man shouldn't play G-d. This maybe one of them.
Israeli researchers are the first in the world to have documented that the injection of stem cells from aborted human fetuses can trigger tumors.Although this is just one case, it may become the first of many that will show up as more and more desperate people turn towards stem cells for a miracle cure.
Stem cells, especially those from few-day-old embryos, are considered by many to be a potential cure for a wide variety of chronic disorders - from Parkinson's and Alzheimer's to diabetes and heart disease - because they have the ability to produce new cells of all types for the repair of diseased organs.
But the new research, based on the case of a now-16-year-old Israeli youth suffering from a rare genetic degenerative disease who underwent the highly experimental injections in Russia, is the first documented case of a human brain tumor - albeit a benign, slow-growing one - after fetal stem cell therapy, and sounds an alarm that future stem cell use must be preceded by extensive research.
The patient, born here to parents of Moroccan origin, developed ataxia telangiectasia (AT) as a young child. Degeneration of a certain brain region gradually robs these children of movement, and a faulty immune system leads to frequent infections and cancers. Most victims die in their teens or early 20s.
Although the boy's doctors at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, urged the desperate parents against it, they took him to an unnamed clinic in Moscow for injections of fetal stem cells into his brain and spinal cord.
He returned to Russia twice - at age 10 and 12 - for more injections.
Then, at the age of 13, he developed painful headaches, and an MRI scan showed he had tumors in several parts of the brain and the spinal cord.
Two-and-a-half years ago, hematology Prof. Gideon Rechavi, head of Sheba's Cancer Center and Tel Aviv University's Cancer Biology Center, headed a team that investigated the case and found after extensive pathological and genetic research that the tumors were not germane to the patient, but were sourced from at least two fetuses whose foreign tissue had been injected into him.
For example, the tumors contained both XX (female) and XY (male) cells, while if they had come from the boy's body they could not have female chromosomes. They also had two normal copies of the ATM gene, which causes AT when mutated. Since the boy has AT, those genes cannot be his.
The team noted, however, that the fact that the boy has AT may have facilitated the growth of the tumors because of the weak immune system in such patients.
In 2006, the boy underwent brain and spinal cord surgery performed by Prof. Shlomo Constantini, head of the pediatric neurosurgery department at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center's Dana Children's Hospital. Only those tumors that were believed to grow relatively rapidly were removed.
Today, the youth's condition is stable, with the tumors growing slowly enough to be considered benign, but he is wheelchair-bound.
While the parents reportedly regret taking him to Russia, AT is such a dangerous genetic disorder - killing most victims by the age of 20 - that it threatens his life more than the tumors.
The Jerusalem Post learned that the researchers' work, just published in the US Public Library of Science (PLoS) on-line, open-access journal, was initially turned down for publication by the highly prestigious journals Nature and Science.
Read the full story here.
I wonder how many more patients have had this problem in Russia, how many are undiscovered with this problem not only in Russia but elsewhere and what is the rate that this happens.
The animal studies on stem cells are very exciting and the results there are promising, but there is no long term study on the effects of stem cells on the human body. Just the hype from the media and those who suffer from debilitating diseases or injuries. They are proclaiming stem cells as the next new miracle cure. Instead it might just be the opposite, a horrible and deadly side effect. One that has the ability to kill instead of cure.
5 comments:
I don't really keep up on the stem cell research debate that much but I believe I remember at one time, proof coming out that there was no evidence that embryonic stems cells were more effective than adult stem cells...and it seems to me that the Leftists in America only protested President Bush's ban on embryonic because he banned it - they didn't care if it was effective, they didn't care if it was dangerous, they didn't care if it worked...they only protested because HE SAID NO.
It's like a young kid who is told that he can't have a cookie before dinner - even tho the youngster isn't even hungry, he'll grab a cookie just out of defiance. Moral of the story? Leftists=immature children.
Trying to find effective ways to cure the most intractable diseases is hardly 'playing god,' it's how research funds should most ethically be spent.
You pointed out that there are no long-term studies on the effects of stem-cell treatments on the human body, well this can be one. Stem-cell research in countries with strong ethical research guidelines (i.e., not Korea, or Russia, or China) is looking at ways to force the development path of the cells. I get the impression that this was more of a 'shoot blindly' approach, which is probably why the Israelis discouraged it while unregulated Russian clinics were willing to do it- for the right price, of course.
And this is hardly a case where stem cell-treatments are advisable! The patient had a disease that caused him to be cancer prone in the first place!
Every treatment, every medicine has the potential to kill instead of cure if it is administered wrong, or dosed wrong, or counterindicated by other medicines or preconditions! We treat cancer with deadly radiation and chemical poisons, for example! We treat epilepsy by cutting chunks out of the patient's brain! If the potential benefits outweigh the cost, it is always the patient's choice to go through with it.
This is a case where underinformed, rich parents were duped into buying snake-oil, since the treatment didn't fit the disease at all. I really enjoy reading you blog, dude, but your criticism is WAY out of context here.
@ Holger:
I don't know why leftists protested Bush's stem cell ban, but your description probably fits more than a few cases. I can tell you why scientists protested it though: it handcuffed American research in a potentially very productive, effective and lucrative field. It was not based on adult stem cell research being promising, because there just wasn't much being done at the time. It was also clearly and appeal to his christian support base, and so was a political decision rather than a scientific one.
It may work out to have an unforeseen positive consequence by stimulating research in the emerging fields of adult stem-cells and cord-blood stem-cells, but you can't reverse engineer the positive effect from the decision. Those field are still far behind the treatment phase of research, and have higher side-effect risks, whereas embryonic stem cells have been used for dramatic treatments for over a decade.
I would like to see a source for your story about equal effectiveness. You see, adult stem cells have to be back-cloned and bombarded with chemicals and growth factors to get them from regular cells, back to stem cells. I can see us developing the technology to do that more reliably at some point, but we aren't there now.
I'm not against stem cell or any other research. I am against not fully studying the effects of the same research.
Stem cell research holds the promise and hope of miracle cures, but it can also hold the opposite, as this sad case has shown.
I pray that it will be the next line of cures for diseases that seem uncurable today, but want strict protocols of testing and long term studies to be done before any person is given a treatment.
2 points:
Stem cell treatments have been in use for over a decade! Look up the 'Frozen Addicts' case, a landmark case in Parkinson's disease research. I won't give away the punchline, but let's say there's a reason why there is so much interest in the process. That particular area has since lost some promise, but that's not the point.
Second, your tone about 'playing god' is hardly indicative of an open mind.
You forget a few things Rob. There is limited success with fetal cells in the Frozen Addict Cases and research into new drugs in regards to these cases have and is helping those with Parkinson's today.
Researchers are mortal men and women. The majority of them are decent people, who are using their knowledge to cure the incurable. But there are also those men and women who will cut corners, take risks and promote a "cure" on their own say so. Some times these "cures" work, but the majority of times they don't. And they are the ones who like to play G-d.
In the case of the youngster mentioned in the post, the attending doctors should have told the parents no. He was at a high risk to develop cancerous tumors. But instead they just saw the money and went ahead with the treatment. Where is the moral outrage in that? They not only played G-d, but condemned this child to a life of suffering over the illness that he had already had.
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