This treatment to reverse MS isn’t “new.” It has been in human trials for years — and continues to look very hopeful. How hopeful? From the Telegraph story:
The treatment is being carried out at Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield and Kings College Hospital, London and involves use a high dose of chemotherapy to knock out the immune system before rebuilding it with stem cells taken from the patient’s own blood.
Miss Drewry had the treatment in Sheffield. She said: “I started seeing changes within days of the stem cells being put in.
“I walked out of the hospital. I walked into my house and hugged Isla. I cried and cried. It was a bit overwhelming. It was a miracle.”
Her treatment has now been reviewed and her condition found to have been dramatically halted. She will need to be monitored for years but the hope is that her transplant will be a permanent fix.:
Let us hope so. And we need to keep in mind that this is still in the testing stage. Time will tell if it enters medicine’s armamentarium.
But it’s also worth recalling that during the embryonic-stem-cell debate in the Bush years, Big Biotech and their media and camp followers repeatedly claimed emphatically that embryonic stem cells were the “only hope” for diseases like MS, and that those who suggested that there were ethical alternatives were “anti-science” and “imposing religion on science.” Bah.
Remember that the next time “the scientists” try to stampede you into accepting — and paying hundreds of billions for — questionably ethical approaches to finding CURES! CURES! CURES!