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Dear fellow advocates-
Here at U2FP, we have good news and bad news. The bad news first-Yet again, the CDRPA did not pass into law. The good news? It came closer than we knew was possible, once upon a time. More good news, there is still a chance for passage; the fight is not yet over. Continue Reading »
Stem cell procedures lack evidence
PHILADELPHIA — In February, Marcela DeVivo took her baby son to the Dominican Republic and paid $30,000 to have him injected with blood stem cells from aborted fetuses.
Nathan, who turns 2 next month, was born with the hemispheres of his brain fused. He is physically and mentally handicapped.
DeVivo is among a growing number of Americans spending up to $75,000 in the hope that clinics in developing countries have realized the dream of regenerative medicine: using stem cells to fix the so-far unfixable. Continue Reading »
SEATTLE – A new online atlas that links mouse genes to spinal cord function should point researchers toward new treatments for maladies that affect millions of people, the project’s leaders said Thursday.
The first “pages” of the Allen Spinal Cord Atlas, backed by software billionaire Paul Allen and an unusual consortium of contributors, were made available on the Internet for an official unveiling. Eventually, the free online resource will offer 30 trillion bytes of data documenting how a mouse’s full set of 20,000 genes affect spinal cord development.
“The Allen Spinal Cord Atlas offers profound potential for researchers to unlock the mysteries of the spinal cord and how it is altered during disease or injury,” Allan Jones, chief scientific officer at the Seattle-based Allen Institute for Brain Science, said in a statement released early Thursday. Continue Reading »
2008 has been a year marred by injuries to horses and people riding them.
When I see a rider go down, it reminds me of the accident that paralyzed and ultimately killed Christopher Reeve.
Like Rock Hudson for AIDS and Lou Gehrig for ALS, Reeve put a famous and courageous face on an ailment. Because of Reeve, money and resources have been devoted to possible cures for spinal cord injuries.
I work with lesser-known people who benefited from the attention that Christopher Reeve brought to spinal injuries. These aren’t famous movie stars. They are people hit by a truck or who fell on a slippery floor.
Like Reeve, their lives changed in one second. Continue Reading »
In February, Marcela DeVivo took her baby son to the Dominican Republic and paid $30,000 to have him injected with blood stem cells from aborted fetuses.
Nathan, who turns 2 next month, was born with the hemispheres of his brain fused. He is physically and mentally handicapped.
DeVivo is among a growing number of Americans spending up to $75,000 in the hope that clinics in developing countries have realized the dream of regenerative medicine: using stem cells to fix the so-far unfixable. Continue Reading »
Chennai: Can you gain anything from someone whose job has not been determined? In sports, the guy who sits on the bench can only sit and watch the game, till he is called for. But, we are in the 21st century and medical science can do wonders, breaking barriers and age-old thinking. So even though a stem cell is a cell whose job is yet not determined, new-age companies are opening new vistas of treatment with them. Here’s the catch: every single cell in our bodies ‘stems’ from a stem cell. Like the Queen in chess, a stem cell can become a lot of things, when it gets the signal. So, here you have a part of your body which can become a skin cell, bone cell, red blood cell, nerve cell, skeletal muscle cell…thought not at the same time.
Stem cell company Stempeutics Research (backed by Manipal Education & Medical Group) is in the forefront of such innovation. Its sprightly President, Mr B. N. Manohar recently came down to Kasturi Buildings for a lunch-hour interaction and opened up a new world of therapy and possible cure for diseases, which conventional medicine cannot cure. Continue Reading »
We’re not protecting young car passengers as well as we could, according to researchers at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute.
They’ve shown that the spine of a young child is significantly different from that of an adult in ways which could influence the risk of spinal cord injury and the results of crash testing. And they’ve called for new crash dummy designs that better mimic what happens to a real child in a crash.
“Our studies have found huge differences in flexibility and stiffness between young and mature spines. And in a collision, a younger, more flexible, spine is likely to place greater strain on the spinal cord inside,” says Elizabeth (Liz) Clarke, a researcher at the Institute. Continue Reading »
National Spinal Cord Injury Association to be Honored at Abilities Expo
ROCKVILLE, Md.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nominations for the 2008 Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Hall of Fame are now being accepted. Anyone is eligible to nominate candidates in any one or more of 17 available categories. Nominations will be vetted and confirmed for completeness and accuracy, and then NSCIA members choose the 2008 Hall of Fame Inductees in each category through an online voting process. Finalists will be reviewed by a the Hall of Fame Selection Committee before the final inductees are announced at the 4th annual SCI Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Gala this fall in New Orleans.
Formed by NSCIA in 2005, the SCI Hall of Fame was created to celebrate and honor individuals and organizations that have made significant contributions to quality of life and advancements toward a better future for all individuals with spinal cord injury. Continue Reading »
Scientists say difficulty lies in extrapolating animal data to humans
Washington—Research on traumatic spinal cord injuries is hampered by a reliance on animal experiments that don’t accurately predict human outcomes, says a new study in the upcoming edition of the peer-reviewed journal Reviews in the Neurosciences. The review was written by scientists with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
“Despite decades of animal experiments, we still don’t have a drug to cure spinal cord injury in humans,” says Aysha Akhtar, a neurologist with PCRM and the lead author. “According to the Journal of the American Paraplegic Society, at least 22 agents were found to improve spinal cord injury in animals, but not one of these was helpful in humans,” says Dr. Akhtar. Continue Reading »
The most severely wounded and disabled US soldier to return home from Iraq is a Filipino-American by the name of Joseph “Jay” Briseno Jr. Shot in 2003 in the back of the neck at pointblank range that severed his spinal cord and left him quadriplegic and blind, Jay now lives with his parents and siblings in Virginia and requires full-time, around-the-clock care.
In an article by news editor Edmund Silvestre published in the Filipino Reporter, Jay’s father Joseph Sr., a retired US Army sergeant, describes the extent of his son’s injuries and needs: “Aside from spinal cord and brain injuries, Jay also suffered two cardiac arrests and has been attached to a life support… doctors told us that he would die, that it’s impossible for him to survive his injuries and that it’s best for all of us if he were to die.”
Paralyzed from his chin down, Jay cannot eat, move, speak or breathe on his own, Silvestre writes. “Although conscious, his ability to communicate is severely limited.” Continue Reading »