Huge Potential from Stem Cells Found in Umbilical Cord Blood.(Brief Article)

Although you would never know it by most press accounts, even while there is absolutely no track record of success using stem cells culled from human embryos, there is a lengthening history of extraordinary success using stem cells taken from ethically unobjectionable sources. The latest overview of this already-in-use alternative appeared in the August 20 edition of the Seattle Times.

Savannah Jantsch's fate seemed sealed five years ago. Just five years old, she was struggling both with leukemia and a rare blood disorder which left her unable to make crucial blood cells that help clot blood and heal injuries.

Savannah's parents took her to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Doctors made her one of the early recipients of stem cells from a virtually unlimited source: umbilical-cord blood of newborns. (There are a number of cord blood banks around the country to whom mothers anonymously donate cord blood, including the Puget Sound Blood Center in Seattle.)

But before anything else could be done, her diseased cells had to be destroyed by massive doses of chemotherapy. Once her body was rid of this menace, on November 26, 1997, Savannah received her life-giving stem cell transplant, according to reporter Warren King.

King quotes Jeff Jantsch, Savannah's father, who said, "It's a resource that has given our daughter a whole news life." In fact, he added, "It's like she's been two different people with different lifestyles and a different existence."

The result of the infusion, King writes, is that "Savannah Jantsch is living proof of the healing power of [adult] stem cells, one of the basic building blocks of human tissue."

The story makes a larger point: adult stem cells are the "work horses of bone-marrow transplants - - they're embedded in the bone marrow - - they have been used for more than 30 years to treat several different types of leukemia and aplastic anemia." However, there is a new wrinkle. More and ...