RUTH SACKMAN'S NOTEBOOK

placenta.

What a tragedy is taking place! The placenta, umbilical cord and blood are trashed while patients could reap the benefit of these miracle cells. Every day that approval of stem cell use is delayed, someone will be deprived of treatment that could be lifesaving, especially transplant patients. Before transplants are done for liver, heart or kidney patients, stem cells can be tried to effect a repair. If the cells make the repair, the patient can avoid transplant surgery. And many people are never high enough on the list to ever receive a transplant. These stem cells may save their lives. Spinal cord injury, nerve damage, Parkinson's disease and diabetes are other health problems that have responded to cell therapy.

The FDA needs an overhaul! It has approved drugs, which ultimately are found to be harmful and even deadly, has approved gene therapy even though there has been evidence that the safety factor is questionable. Yet the agency continues to drag its feet in approving stem cell therapy which has little or no risk but can be very beneficial.

In printing articles about cell therapy in Cancer Forum, I don't want to leave the impression that cell therapy is considered a cancer cure. Although it is not the cure, it can play a very important role in effecting a recovery. Since FACT is in the forefront of supporting a system of restoring biochemical balance for the cancer patient a requirement in the body's effort to effect a biorepair to correct normal cell production cell therapy can be a very competent tool in regenerating organs up to their optimum level of efficiency.

Healthy organs will promote the healing process more quickly than a metabolic program alone by enhancing immunity, normalizing metabolism and improving detoxification. All of which is designed to achieve normal cell production, our ultimate goal.

Perhaps, the answer to this delay, is to put pressure on your representatives in Congress and encourage your doctor to be your ally in requesting a hearing so all the facts can be aired and a solution can be found to resolve this stalemate.

Cell therapy is a medical system that uses healthy cell injections to repair organs, nerves and tissues that have degenerated and no longer serve the body's normal function adequately. It has also been used for rejuvenation to maintain youthful energy and appearance. The technique has been available in European clinics for at least 70 years but unavailable in the United States as our FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has never approved its use. It is sad that Americans, except for those able to travel to Europe or other countries, have been deprived of the health benefits of cell therapy.

The work was started in Switzerland when a patient's parathyroids were accidently injured during a surgical procedure and she desperately needed help to save her life. The hospital was aware of the cell therapy experiments of Dr. Paul Niehans, who lived in Montreux, near the hospital. Niehans was called by the institution to see if he could repair the damaged organs and hopefully save her life. Using a crude system of grinding the animal parathyroid cells, putting them in a syringe, he injected them into the patient. The healthy cells did what it was hoped they would do, repaired the parathyroids and saved her life.

This was the birth of cell therapy in Europe, and many other countries. The United States FDA deemed the therapy ineffective and categorized it as quackery.

Now there is an awakening in the United States of the benefit of stem cell therapy, which is an improvement over the organ-specific cell therapy technique used earlier. Stem cells differentiate into any type of cell that the body needs to repair. Advancing stem cell use to the stage of acceptance here in the USA is bogged down in unnecessary controversy because of the mistaken use of embryonic cells which violate the convictions of a number of religious groups. There is absolutely no need to use embryonic cells! Cells could be and should be derived from the placenta, umbilical cord and cord blood. Even Pope Paul has suggested using the

Ruth Sackman is President of FACT. This article is reprinted from Cancer Forum, official FACT publication available with membership.