Wednesday, April 17, 2019

The Controversy Surrounding Stem Cell Research Facilities

By Mary Bell


One can only marvel at all the major breakthroughs that have been made in the field of medicine during the past decade or two. Cures have been found for many previously deadly diseases. People live longer and more comfortable due to new drugs and treatment methods. Doctors can now even operate on unborn babies, attach severed limbs and transplant organs. More breakthroughs are promised and stem cell research facilities say that they are on the verge of miraculous new cures.

The concept behind bone marrow transplants is no a recent one. These transplants have been done on patients suffering from leukemia and other blood related cancers for some years. The theory is that the transplant will encourage new blood cells to grow in order to replace the ones destroyed by chemo therapy. The procedure is risky, however, and only used as a last resort as the success rate is rather low.

There is still no cure for cancer and bone marrow transplants are merely done to prolong the life of the patient. Scientists hope that this will change. They say that these transplants will eventually becoming a cure for many different types of cancer. Studies in this area have not showed positive results yet because progress is extremely slow. A real cure for cancer by means of bone marrow transplants is still in the future.

It is not only cancer that scientists hope to cure with bone marrow transplants. Many studies focus on the brain. It is believed that it would eventually be possible to use bone marrow transplants to grow new brain cells. This will make it possible to reverse the effects of brain injuries, strokes and dread conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer. Studies in this area are still in their infancy, however.

The use of transplants to overcome heart disease is also important to many scientists in this field. Once again, they hope that transplants will cause the growth of healthy cells in the heart to replace damaged or destroyed ones. As heart disease is still one of the major killer diseases all over the world, any breakthrough in this area will save many millions of lives. Positive results are still far in the future, unfortunately.

This area of research has numerous enemies, many of them eminent scientists themselves. They say that there is no prove whatsoever that bone marrow transplants can stimulate the growth of new cells. They point out that these transplants are dangerous and that many recipients do not survive the procedure. They also point out that the cells being transplanted are often obtained from the umbilical cords of fetuses, which raises many ethical questions.

Critics also lambast researchers of exaggerating the potential of bone marrow transplants and the progress that they are making. No positive results have been published yet but the public and the medical world are nevertheless led to believe that major breakthroughs are just around the corner. This is not true, critics say. Positive results, if any, are still many years into the future.

It is impossible to say whether bone marrow transplants will become a miracle cure or not. There is simply not enough information to form a valid opinion. One cannot but help to hope, however, that a cure for many dread diseases will indeed be found.




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