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Father Dan on February 2nd, 2006
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I’ve wondered about the credibility of umbilical cord “banks.” Fear sells, but are they muckraisers or the product of an evolution of science? Wired Magazine pretty much sums it this week:
“Many private banks have thrived since the stem-cell craze debuted in the late ’90s, with the top three private banks reporting revenues in excess of $300 million. Estimates are that the industry has doubled since 2003. But thanks to $79 million in federal money that will fund the new public bank, private cord-blood collectors may have a harder time attracting new business.Many doctors say that’s just fine, because private blood banking is a rip-off.
Doctors rarely use a child’s own cord blood to treat disease, according to Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, director of the pediatric blood and marrow transplant program at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. In fact, doing so could be dangerous because self-transplantation would reintroduce a genetic defect that first caused a given disease, she says. Moreover, cord blood from public banks is usually preferable because standards ‘for collection, testing, processing and storage are higher.’
Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists oppose private banking and say the practice should only be considered for sibling use in families with a history of a disease that can benefit from a stem-cell transplant.”
Here is the rest of the article. What other kind of crap have companies tried to sell new parents? I’d love your comments.
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December 18th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I came across your blog via Google when I searched for “Cord Blood Scams”.
My wife & I are expecting our first child in March & we’ve been bombarded by Cord Blood Banking literature in the mail & our OBGYN has also discussed it with us.
Being somewhat skeptical re. the services offered, I decided to consult a good friend who happens to be a geneticist at a leading facility in the UK. She had this to say with regards to what some of these companies are advertising:
“It is a huge emerging field, but it is in the very early stages, and there is nothing to say that these stem cells will definitely be able to be used for all the treatments they say. They are making a MASSIVE assumption that the science will advance very quickly so that these cells can be used within their lifetime (i.e. the length of time they can be stored for and still be useful). I think the only cells sucessfully grown from stem cells is nerve cells, and the stem cells used for that were taken from the adult nasal passage (the only place in an adult that is constantly regenerating).”
I intend to continue researching the subject (as all parents-to-be should) before spending thousands of dollars on something speculative to calm my fears, and I hope to discover a free public banking service to contribute to!