When Medicine Meets Marketing

It is so very clear that the person who wrote this article, number one does not have her facts even close to the truth and most importantaly is not a mother...
My daughter Chloe recieved a cord blood stem cell reinfusion in May of this year to reverse the effects of Cerebral Palsy. Todate, she is running, jumping, talking, can reach up with two hands to give me a hug....ALL of which was impossible before reinfusion. If you want to see the proof for yourself please visit www.youtube.com/cbrmom1 and watch the before and after videos. Yes, people with CP will improve over time, but they do not improve over 75% in 5 months.
I really feel that this article is a desperate attempt to meet a writers deadline....you should be ashamed of yourself for writting such a vicious, false article. It is so clear that you know nothing about Cbr's business plan, nor do you know the wonderful people who developed and run this company. Without them my daughter would be living a very difficult life. I really feel that Mary Carmichael owes Cbr, the Hextell family and the public in general an apology for printing a story that is totally untrue!!! Better yet why dont you just resign and do us all a favor!

My husband and I are close friends of the Hextell family and have seen Dallas' progress first hand. There is NO doubt in my mind that his cord blood stem cell infusion procedure has done wonders for his development. Why would a family want to risk not having their child's stem cells available if it was needed? Could you live with yourself if your child had a condition like CP, and you passed on banking your child's cord blood? I do not plan on having any children of my own, but I tell everyone I know who is, to bank their cord blood. Whether it be with CBR or another bank. It's an insurance policy for your child's future!

I work for a company that treats patients with varying diseases with stem cells derived from cord blood. These cells can differentiate and adapt in most everyone. During the time that I have worked for this company I have witnessed amazing remissions in patients with Leukemia, spinal cord injury patients who have regained feeling, movement and the ability to utilize their bladders and bowels. One of our patients is a 9 year old little boy with Cerebral Palsy who after his first treatment was able to get out of bed on his own and sit at the table while his mother was making breakfast. Also, we have a patient with a spinal cord injury where the MRI shows nerve regrowth in his spinal column.

Storing your child's cord blood is a personal decision, but the future of medicine and your child's health certainly can benefit from cord blood.

Additionally, we are moving forward with a procedure called "Apheresis" which utilizes the patients own blood, deriving the cells from there and reintroducing them back into the patient. This procedure has well-known anti-aging abilities and will give individuals the opportunity to stop the progression of aging.

For more information on our procedures please contact CELLULOGIX INTERNATIONAL @ www.cellulogixintl.com or by calling 514-448-2199.

This story is truly amazing! My husband and I have stored our daughter's umbilical cord blood through a company called ViaCord. I am certainly glad we decided to do this as a safety measure. It is truly an insurance policy that comes from God. I encourage all parents to do it.

Storing the cord blood is an insurance policy. My husband passed away when I was pregnant with our 3rd child. Knowing how hard it will be to find a donor that has the same genetic pool as my children's (my husband was a Caucasian and I am Asian) should we ever need to find one, I decided to go ahead and store my baby's cord blood. Hopefully, we would never need to retrieve it, but at least it's there for all three of my children in case we need it.

I was pregnant with our third child when my husband passed away. I am thankful that even while going through the process of grieveing, I had enough sense to go ahead and strore the baby's cord blood. Hopefully, we'll never have to use it, but if we need to, at least it's there. My husband was a Caucasian and I'm Asian; It would not be easy to find a donor match with the same genetic pool should the need arise.

When my daughter was born in October, we donated her cord blood to the public bank at Duke. Our baby's cord blood might be used in this same study, and we didn't have to pay a penny. All I had to do was give a blood sample while I was in labor and sign a few forms. It's a shame that more hospitals aren't able to collect cord blood. Thousands of healthy babies are born every day, and the vast majority of the cord blood is thrown away. What a waste of a potential life-saver!

I find this an exciting development! Sure some entrepreneurs are making money on it now; how is that worse than states allocating BILLIONS of tax dollars on embryonic stem cell research--which to date has definitely not produced ONE SINGLE CURE--but has cost the lives of untold numbers of embryos? There is no reason the government or non-profits cannot get involved in this field in such a way that all have access to the cord blood. Think about this: If every birth mother was offered the chance to store her infant's cord blood and placenta (another rich source of stem cells) for FREE for a period of time and only had to pay in the event it was needed for a transplant, there would be a huge supply of "adult" stem cells (The term adult refers to the developemnt of the cell, not the age of the patient, an infant). If the parents did not need the cells, they could choose to donate them to other patients. Unlike regular transplants which require many matching components ( if I recall correctly, 5 or 6 out of 8), these stem cells only need about 3 matching components, offering so much promise!

While it may seem "unfair" that only the weathy can now afford the banking of these precious cells, and while it may seem crass that someone is making a profit out of parents' worries about their children's health, be realistic. The wealthy can always afford better medical care, food, housing, etc. Nothing new there! And what could be more crass than allocating BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars on the specious hope that embryonic stem cell research will refill the coffers of states whose economic bases have tanked (such as California"s Silicon Valley)? Though embryonic stem cell research has not produced ONE SINGLE CURE to date, Gov. Schwarzenager has vetoed any funding for adult stem cell research which has produced over 40 types of cures. And, in Hollywood tradition, the doctors and researchers involved could honestly clalim, " No human being were destroyed in the cures of these patients."

It's a win-win-win solution.

My husband and I spent months doing research on cord blood banking before our daughter was born in July. After countless hours and days of study we decided that cord blood banking was vitally important; and we couldn???t afford NOT to do it. We investigated several different cord blood banking companies and selected CBR because of their reputation and expertise in the industry. Our own OBGYN said he wished cord blood banking was around when he had children 25 years ago. We see this as an investment and can???t think of money better spent on anything in her life! It not only has the potential to help her, but others in our family as well (should she/we ever need it). We think of it like our life insurance policy, we hope and pray we never have to use it, but the peace of mind that it???s there is PRICELESS.

WHY save cord blood?? Why not give it to the baby when he is born by letting it continue to drain into the baby at birth. When it STOPS pulsating, the blood has stopped flowing thus disposing all it's contents into baby at birth giving him the healthiest start to begin with.

My husband and I spent months doing research on cord blood banking before our daughter was born in July. After countless hours and days of study we decided that cord blood banking was vitally important; and we couldn???t afford NOT to do it. We investigated several different cord blood banking companies and selected CBR because of their reputation and expertise in the industry. Our own OBGYN said he wished cord blood banking was around when he had children 25 years ago. We see this as an investment and can???t think of money better spent on anything in her life!

Ok, so I have looked at this and I am sum what confused as I have seen additional press on CP and cord blood transplants after the Hextell article. First, the claim was that you can only use your own cells. Does anyone know if that is correct? I have also heard that CP affects 1 in 300 children. Does that not lead one to conclude that the odds of using the cells is 1 in 300? I ran the math as well. The article mentions 18 years at $125 + $2150 = $4275. If I divide that out, that comes out to $20 a month. So $20 a month, which is less than my cable tv bill, for the odds of 1 in 300 if that is accurate. Doesnt seem that extreme to me. But hey, priorities are priorities.

This is one more way medical discoveries benefit the wealthy, leaving the poor. How many new parents can afford an extra $2,000 at the birth of their child plus $125 a year for storage? Medical science is great, for those who can pay for the treatments.

Sooner or later Stem cell technology will enable us to treat not all but many diseases. I do bel??eve the stem cells but not cryopreservation of these cell for a long t??me spending huge money. Just we have to focus on what stem cells available in our body when we got the disease. today we are very near to reprogram any stem cell into much more proliferative and theraputic state but the technology requires time to avoid the adverse effects. The storage of stem cells will be useles one day, instead of spending money oreservat??on we can spend the money for the researches in this field and for new theraputic tirals.