PSCB

Our beautiful son was born a few days ago and the process of donating his Umbilical Cord Blood couldn’t have been easier! Minus the fact that we almost forgot about giving the doctor the kit on time We got so caught up in the moment but luckily my husband remembered in time. It was actually FedEx that came and picked it up. I will definitely be donating again and hope that you too will consider doing the same. I had a lot of people at the hospital tell me how great they thought it was and how they didn’t know you could so hopefully this will start a wave of others who are willing to donate. Thanks to Cryobanks Int’l for making the process to simple.

I was so excited to turn on the Today Show and see a segment on Stem Cell Banking. They were discussing if it was really worth paying to have your child’s stem cells privately stored. The Doctor they were interviewing said that Public Banking was a much better option. This is because it is very expensive to privately store, the stem cells aren’t “recommended” for use on that child, if intended for a sibling there is only a 1 in 4 chance that the cells will match, it is unlikely that the cells will be needed at all and it is unknown exactly how long the cells are good for.

With Public Banking these cells become available to those who need it regardless of ability to afford it. The more people who donate, the more matches become available. I am having my baby in a week and am so excite to participate in becoming a stem cell donor. It has been a very simple process so far. Cryo International
Thank you Today Show for bring awareness to this very important issue.

Hillary Clinton

An outspoken supporter of stem cell research, Clinton cosponsored the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005. President Bush vetoed the bill, which would have allowed federal financing of stem cell research on new embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded human embryos originally created for fertility treatments. She has called the ethics of stem cell research “a delicate balancing act.”

John McCain

“When scientists say climate change is an urgent problem, the senator from Arizona listens to them; he’s made it a central issue in his platform, and over the last several years has drawn the ire of Bush administration officials for criticizing their mishandling of climate change science and policy. He was an architect of the recently-passed energy bill. Like Giuliani, he supports embryonic stem cell research but not cloning; other science issues haven’t caught his attention.

McCain opposes embryonic stem cell research that uses cloned human embryos. In 2006 he supported a trio of U.S. Senate bills designed to increase federal funding for adult stem cell research, ban the creation of embryos for research and offer federal support for research using embryos slated for destruction by fertility clinics. In 2007, in what he described as “a very agonizing and tough decision,” he voted to allow research using human embryos left over from fertility treatments.

Barack Obama

Obama supports relaxing federal restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. He voted for the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005, which was vetoed by President Bush. The bill would have allowed federal funding to be used for research on stem cell lines obtained from discarded human embryos originally created for fertility treatments.

In all fairness

Ron Paul

Paul backed President Bush’s veto of congressional legislation to expand federal funding for non-embryonic stem cell research, saying he doesn’t oppose such research but objects to federal funding for it. The founding fathers, Paul also wrote, “intended to keep issues such as embryonic stem cell research entirely out of Washington’s hands.”

Source Links

Religion and Politics

Candidate Science Smackdown

Hillary Clinton Speaks Out

McCain Political Position

Obama Political Position

Ron Paul Political Position

    According to a recent study published in Stem Cells and Developments March issue, umbilical cord stem cells have been found to reduce the progression of Alzheimer’s. This has only been researched with mice.

“The scientific community has only skimmed the surface in uncovering the many potential therapeutic uses for cord blood stem cells, and this new research in Alzheimer’s disease may pave the way for discoveries around the use of these cells for a host of neurodegenerative and other chronic conditions,” stated Mercedes Walton, chairman and CEO of Cryo-Cell International.

This is encouraging  news for anyone who has known someone who has suffered from this horrible disease. This runs in both sides of my family and I have hope that these treatments will be available for my mom and the following generations. It would be wonderful to make this a disease of the past along with the many other disease that stem cells have the potential to treat.

For the full article please click here. 

In a recent article I read it has been projected that 1 in 200 people will need a stem cell transplant. More than 75 conditions can currently be treated with umbilical cord stem cells. In the past 17 years over 10,000 people have been treated with stem cells. For the full article click here .