Talk Cancer

Question:

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 07:05:46 -0400, "David & Sherri Calladine" <callad…@toast.net> wrote in alt.support.mult-sclerosis: >Has there >been a person who has been cured with stem cells

Craig Garrison, a member of this group, underwent autologous stem treatment. This is taking a person’s own stem cells, killing their immune system and then re-introducing the stem cells. He feels that the procedure has cured his MS.  See http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=3D299A17.5… for his answer to my question about being cured.  Unfortunately, the damage already caused by the MS was not reversed.  Craig’s story is on Paul Jones’ web site at http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/ . — From: watchman (watch…@nucleus.com) [Now ironjust...@aol.com] Newsgroups: alt.support.thyroid Date: 2002-01-12 15:56:30 PST "Look lady .. if you don’t know what you are talking about ‘medically’ .. then stay out of it .. The man has had three miscarriages/spontaneous abortions."

Response:

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002 14:18:01 +0100, in alt.support.mult-sclerosis,Paul Jones <jones.p…@btconnect.com> wrote: – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->David & Sherri Calladine wrote: >> Everyday there are new articles about people who are against Stem Cell >> therapy.  We don’t here too much about people who agree with it.  For some >> reason the negative reports seem to out weigh the postive ones.  Has there >> been a person who has been cured with stem cells or are they still working >> on mice?!! >> We need to find a cure for all of these dreaded diseases – I am so tired of >> taking medicine for the tingling and for the side effects of my daily shots >> of  Copaxone.  When are they suppose to have a cure? >I think we have to be patient here. This is a technology in >its infancy and it will take a while to perfect. There is >much that is still to be understood about how stem cells >work and also much to be understood about how MS works.

This is important to remember (hey, I am actually being serious here …. I’ll try not to let it happen again). Imagine if they were to try to use stem cells to cure cancer by injecting stem cells and all that happened was that the stem cells differentiated into cancer cells. Having said that, *I* am far from convinced that this or most of the other projected therapies on the horizon will be effective at curing MS.  This is especially true because they know so little about what actually causes MS.  Perhaps, if/when they do understand the mechanisms of MS, any treatment or cure that comes out of that understanding will be totally different from anything that they are even considering looking at, today. Tomorrow, though, should be *very* interesting. — "Who we are and who we become depends, in part, on whom we love." — "A General Theory Of Love"  Thanks, Mom ______________________________________________________________ Glen Appleby  gl…@armory.com <HTTP://www.armory.com/~glena/>

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Everyday there are new articles about people who are against Stem Cell therapy.  We don’t here too much about people who agree with it.  For some reason the negative reports seem to out weigh the postive ones.  Has there been a person who has been cured with stem cells or are they still working on mice?!! We need to find a cure for all of these dreaded diseases – I am so tired of taking medicine for the tingling and for the side effects of my daily shots of  Copaxone.  When are they suppose to have a cure?

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  That’s a wonderful point you brought up.I’m wonderin the same thing. I think that’s why so many are against stem cell therapy. There’s still no cure…Arggg!!!!!

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David & Sherri Calladine wrote: > Everyday there are new articles about people who are against Stem Cell > therapy.  We don’t here too much about people who agree with it.  For some > reason the negative reports seem to out weigh the postive ones.  Has there > been a person who has been cured with stem cells or are they still working > on mice?!! > We need to find a cure for all of these dreaded diseases – I am so tired of > taking medicine for the tingling and for the side effects of my daily shots > of  Copaxone.  When are they suppose to have a cure?

I think we have to be patient here. This is a technology in its infancy and it will take a while to perfect. There is much that is still to be understood about how stem cells work and also much to be understood about how MS works. Stem cell therapy has been used in Parkinson’s disease in humans with mixed results. Despite this, the work has been yet another proof of principle and, as such, is hopeful. The best present hope for stem cell therapy in MS comes from oligodendrocyte precursor cells which may come from embryos, may be autologous (i.e. derived from the people with MS themselves) or may come from autologous Schwann cells. Perhaps it will take too long for many of us to benefit but should we deny potential therapies to future generations of people with MS or other diseases? Despite assertions to the contrary, many researchers are working towards treating this disease more effectively, arresting its progress or reversing it. There are problems with research and competing interests, but researchers aren’t all callously serving their own self-interest – most are just normal people and some are very dedicated. Their project is a difficult one – we should cut them some slack and not blame them for our disease. Some people have issues with the ethics of embryonic stem cell research and animal experimentation. These are different questions altogether. Take care, Paul All About MS – the latest MS News and Views http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/

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