Thai doctors condemn storing of umbilical-cord blood

[webfact]

HEALTH
Doctors condemn storing of umbilical-cord blood
Pongphon Sarnsamak
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Keeping their babies' umbilical-cord blood in a bank for future use will be of no benefit for new parents or their children, according to the Medical Council of Thailand.

"There is no scientific evidence to prove that using umbilical-cord blood can treat chronic disease or illness at a later date," the council's president Dr Somsak Lohlekha said.

Currently a number of private cord-blood banks provide the service of storing the blood from newborn babies for fees ranging from Bt6,000 to Bt100,000 per year.

Allegedly, obstetricians at state hospitals are asked frequently by the banks to save the blood for their customers. Some have allegedly been offered bribes to undergo these medical practices for them.

"[There's no point in keeping] your kid's umbilical cord blood in storage, even if you keep it for 20 years," he said.

At present, the Medical Council of Thailand only approves the use of stem-cell treatment for blood diseases like leukaemia, malignant lymphoma, aplastic anaemia, multiple myeloma and thalassemia.

Somsak said the council would soon hold a press conference warning the public about the futility of using an umbilical cord-blood bank.

Control on false advertising

The council will also control advertising to lure patients into receiving unlicensed stem-cell treatment for illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes or for aesthetic purposes.

It said the practice has become popular among celebrities and rich people who can afford the treatment, which can cost anything from Bt100,000 to Bt1 million.

It said there are many private clinics, especially in Bangkok, targeting patients with ads for unlicensed stem cell-therapy. Some private clinics offer a package tour for patients to fly to Germany and receive stem-cell injections extracted from unborn sheep that they believe will improve their health and make them look younger.

"We are now collecting more and more evidence to take legal action against physicians or agencies providing such treatment as it could put patients at risk from complications," he said.


-- The Nation 2013-09-20

[canman]

Sounds like someones not getting a cut of the action and is pi$$ed off

[tuky]

Strange, my mate just had a kid in Australia and he was saying it is now viewed as being negligent if you DON'T keep the umbilical stem cell blood tissue things. I would like to know more about this. Maybe one of our esteemed medical members will have a comment on this.

[canman]

The article is all over the place and confuses a couple differant issues on the umbilical cord issue:

"There is no scientific evidence to prove that using umbilical-cord blood can treat chronic disease or illness at a later date," the council's president Dr Somsak Lohlekha said.

True but the whole point of storing the umbilical cord stem cells is that there is a good possibility in the future that they could be used to treat disease

Given that it is only the well off in Thailand who can even afford to consider this, why is this guy wasteing air putting up poorly conceived warning? The more well off are typically better educated and in theory capable of making an informed decision. Plenty of more pressing health issues affecting the vast majority of Thai's that this guy could be focusing on.

[Tatsujin]

Cord blood is collected because it contains stem cells, including hematopoietic cells, which can be used to treat hematopoietic and genetic disorders. One unit of cord blood generally lacks stem cells in a quantity sufficient to treat an adult patient. The placenta is a much better source of stem cells since it contains up to ten times more than cord blood.

Well, what he states seems to go completely against what the research around the world seems to suggest, that stem cells from blood and placenta CAN be successfully used to treat a number of diseases/illnesses with little/no chance of rejection/complications as it comes from your own body.

[Mampara]

Cord blood is collected because it contains stem cells, including hematopoietic cells, which can be used to treat hematopoietic and genetic disorders. One unit of cord blood generally lacks stem cells in a quantity sufficient to treat an adult patient. The placenta is a much better source of stem cells since it contains up to ten times more than cord blood.

Well, what he states seems to go completely against what the research around the world seems to suggest, that stem cells from blood and placenta CAN be successfully used to treat a number of diseases/illnesses with little/no chance of rejection/complications as it comes from your own body.

A lot of strange things are happening over hear.

[Joe Mamma]

Only time will tell, but with the cell cloning and replication growth and other new scientific areas opening, could it hurt to keep frozen bio product for future potential? These are for the intended only, and not conductive for practitioners of the medical industry. The potential of lost business and a change to the status quo could factor in too?

I am keeping the kids corpuscles until they need them.

[Bagwan]

"It said the practice has become popular among celebrities and rich people who can afford the treatment, which can cost anything from Bt100,000 to Bt1 million."

So what is the problem? Make it mandatory for all 'pollies' and persons of influence.

[10ten]

I am not sure about the accuracy of this article. It would be better to see the whole text of what the doctor said rather than just a couple of cherry-picked sentences (translated from Thai?). I have a feeling that the article may not be a good summary of the point the doctor was making.

If he is arguing against routine private cord blood banking, that seems a reasonable enough position and is in line with many countries' policies. If he would be equally opposed to public cord blood banking (and I am not sure which if any hospitals in Thailand have set up banks) that seems to me harder to understand (although I appreciate there are cost and safety issues as with any tissue storage/donation).

Edited September 20, 2013 by 10ten

[HerbalEd]

These medical experts are very smart indeed. They can even predict what medical advances in stem cell therapy there will be ... and not be ... in the next twenty years.

[Thait Spot]

Amulets and happy spirits are all that's required

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[HerbalEd]

Cord blood is collected because it contains stem cells, including hematopoietic cells, which can be used to treat hematopoietic and genetic disorders. One unit of cord blood generally lacks stem cells in a quantity sufficient to treat an adult patient. The placenta is a much better source of stem cells since it contains up to ten times more than cord blood.

Well, what he states seems to go completely against what the research around the world seems to suggest, that stem cells from blood and placenta CAN be successfully used to treat a number of diseases/illnesses with little/no chance of rejection/complications as it comes from your own body.

Actually, those too-few stem cells in cord blood can be multiplied many fold by growing them in a bio-reactor. It's very similar to adding a few million yogurt bacteria cells to milk and growing them into billions more of bacteria cells.

The medical establishment has been doing this same thing for centuries. They always have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. While it seems like a contradiction, these supposedly well educated and enlightened people are incredibly close minded. And they protect their status quo like a vicious mother lion.

Edited September 20, 2013 by HerbalEd

[raro]

When my daughter was born, we were also approached by one stem cell bank.

I did some Internet research on it and found that it was highly recommend all over the world, so I went for it.

The stem cell bank also clearly told us that about 50 diseases are recognised to be treatable at that time and also this I was able to verify by some Internet research.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[Thai at Heart]

Either this article doesn't represent what was said, or the medical council of Thailand is 30 years behind the times.

[fire and ice]

The article is all over the place and confuses a couple differant issues on the umbilical cord issue:

"There is no scientific evidence to prove that using umbilical-cord blood can treat chronic disease or illness at a later date," the council's president Dr Somsak Lohlekha said.

True but the whole point of storing the umbilical cord stem cells is that there is a good possibility in the future that they could be used to treat disease

Given that it is only the well off in Thailand who can even afford to consider this, why is this guy wasteing air putting up poorly conceived warning? The more well off are typically better educated and in theory capable of making an informed decision. Plenty of more pressing health issues affecting the vast majority of Thai's that this guy could be focusing on.

Yes, Typical bad science spoken by fools. ie: It cant be scientifically proven, therefore its not true and shoudl be ignored. Then again charging Bt100,000pa to store it sounds like a total scam.

[bkk_mike]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010614064016.htm

Umbilical cord blood is a standard treatment for leukemia IF the patient had their cord blood stored. You need to be unlucky to need your cord blood, but to say there's no medical basis is simply wrong.

And that's without any future possible uses that people come up with for stem cells.

Edited September 20, 2013 by bkk_mike

[10ten]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/06/010614064016.htm

Umbilical cord blood is a standard treatment for leukemia IF the patient had their cord blood stored. You need to be unlucky to need your cord blood, but to say there's no medical basis is simply wrong.

And that's without any future possible uses that people come up with for stem cells.

Be careful. It is really important to separate autologous (you are your own donor) and allogeneic (somebody else donates to you) transplants - it's a crucial distinction.

The point about the study you linked to is that this was treatment of adults with cord blood donation from unrelated donors (i.e. this was not the patients' own cord blood). There are well recognised indications for using cord blood from other donors (either a relative or someone entirely unrelated) as treatment; there are many fewer indications (although I wouldn't say none) for using your own blood (there's a lot of research in this area, though, and some recent encouraging studies so this may be more of an option in the future).

[Lingba]

Typical "medical doctor " response....they would prefer to continue to do as much surgery as possible and drug people up as thats where their money is made...anything that is healing or beneficial to ones health, means people have no use for doctors

[Mudcrab]

Might come in handy for Jingthing and his Gay/Vampire thing happening

[lujanit]

These medical experts are very smart indeed. They can even predict what medical advances in stem cell therapy there will be ... and not be ... in the next twenty years.

And who in 1990 could predict that Apple would release the game changing revolutionary iPhone in 2007?

[kuiburi]

I know a guy that had cancer , not know exactly what kind , but he got cured . Docters selected 2 pregnant women ( there were about 1000 women to choose from ) and they used the umbilicalcord of 1 of the new born baby's and it worked .

Rocketscience to me , but the guy is still ok 1 year after treatment .

So not needs to be ur own umbilical cord seems to me .

[10ten]

I know a guy that had cancer , not know exactly what kind , but he got cured . Docters selected 2 pregnant women ( there were about 1000 women to choose from ) and they used the umbilicalcord of 1 of the new born baby's and it worked .

Rocketscience to me , but the guy is still ok 1 year after treatment .

So not needs to be ur own umbilical cord seems to me .

Exactly. In fact, cord blood donations at the present time are almost always from another person (because why would you give cells that have the same genetic problems or predisposition to cancer back to the patient you are trying to treat?), but in some circumstances can be used for the original donor.

My guess is that if you asked all the private cord blood banks in Thailand how many times they have actually released a sample that was used to treat the child who donated it, the answer would probably be fairly close to zero. It might be a little higher if you add in their brothers and sisters.

If I were to become a father today and had to decide what to do with the cord blood, it would really depend on my bank balance. If I had however many baht a month it costs to spare, then why not? The afterbirth would just be incinerated otherwise and it might be a good idea if my children have especially complex genetic ancestries. There's a lot of interesting research going on at the moment, so maybe there will be a lot more uses in the future (if the cells indeed turn out to be viable long enough).

On the other hand, if it meant I would have to tighten my belt, I would probably spend the money on something that was more certain to be of benefit to my child and, if s/he ever did need cord blood, just rely on the fact that there are new babies born every minute and each one has an umbilical cord.

The good thing about pregnancy, though, is that Nature gives you 40 weeks to do your research, talk to your obstetrician, work out how you feel about it and put all your arrangements in place.