Are there reports of cord blood “cures” which have dubious validity?

Answer: YES. The most miraculous cures always seem to come from parts of the world with little medical oversight. Does this mean the USA FDA is too strict or the claims are bogus? Judge each case for yourself. Examples: Using a child’s own Cord Blood to treat cancer: The advertising of private Cord Blood banks seems to suggest that Cord Blood can be used to treat the baby if s/he develops cancer. This is extremely unlikely. While adult cancers result from acquired cell mutations, there is evidence that many pediatric cancers arise from inborn genetic abnormalities. In that case, it is not safe to treat the child with (autologous) transplants of their own Stem Cells. Sample reference:

• Backtracking leukemia to birth , Rowley, Janet D. 1998 Nature Medicine vol.4(2) 150-151

There are, however, exceptions to this rule: The 2002 report of the European Group for Blood and Marrow Transplantation recognizes autologous transplant as standard practice for children with high risk AML in first remission. See Table 2 of Urbano-Ispizua A, et al., 2002 Bone Marrow Transplantation vol.29(8) 639-646. The Parkinson’s cure in India: Dr. Dinesh Garg achieved reknown in the United States by founding a private cord blood bank, LifeCord USA, which turned out to be a mailing address with no lab. (No relation to other banks named “Lifecord” in Gainesville, FL, Graz, Austria, and Korea.) After that scam was exposed, he fled the country for India, where the Times of India reported 12Sept2001 that Dr. Garg has “cured” Parkinson’s patients with cord blood transplants. The report claims that brain cells “derived by modification of discarded umbilical cord blood Stem Cells” were infused into the cerebrospinal fluid while cooling the brain and spinal cord. The Indian news reports have been repeated uncritically by the American media. Dr. Garg has returned to the United States and his supporters seek funding to conduct a clinical trial of his procedure here. Steenblock Research Institute (SRI): SRI claims that Dr. Fernando Ramirez DelRio in Tijuana, Mexico, has given “pure” cord blood Stem Cells, administered with no prior immunosuppression, to treat seven children with cerebal palsy. (Editorial notes: 1. Scientists have no marker for Stem Cells, so it is impossible to separate “pure” Stem Cells. 2. Without immune suppression, the patient’s body will reject any kind of stem cells.) They report that one child was cured of blindness (Nov2004). By contrast, in medical academia, the most advanced study at Harvard which used stem cells to restore vision was performed in MICE (reported 18Nov2004). Criticism of SRI: The consumer organization QuackWatch lists Steenblock under Questionable “Research” Entities (see their 9 guidelines) and provides links to regulatory actions [1, 2] against Steenblock. Defense from SRI: Dr. Anthony G. Payne has created a page refuting Quackwatch which insists that SRI merely reports on therapies performed with umbilical cord cells by foreign-based physicians. Follow-up article on the boy who was blind (June2005). Central American clinics which thrive on Russian abortions: Alan Zarembo of the LA Times reports that several clinics in Central America trace their roots to the Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine in Kharkov, Ukraine, directed by Dr. Valentin Grischenko. Since 1972, this institute has experimented with medical treatments using cells from aborted fetuses. Based on the institute’s work, in the early 1990s, a group of Ukrainian researchers started a Kiev company called EmCell, charging $25,000 per treatment. In the late 1990’s, Malibu psychiatrist William Rader founded a company named Medra to offer similar fetal cell treatments. Initially based in the Bahamas, Rader now operates a clinic in the Dominican Republic which offers fetal stem-cell treatments for $30,000. The Barbados Nation Newspaper reported 14Nov2004 that the Barbados Institute provides regenerative therapy to patients under the treatment protocols developed by Dr. Valentin Grischenko. The article states that the CEO of Barbados Institute is Barnett Suskind, the embryonic cells come from fetuses aborted in the Ukraine, and the cost is (US)$25,000 per person. The Shady Side of Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy The consumer website QuackWatch, operated by Stephen Barrett, M.D., has devoted an entire page to unregulated clinics which are claiming miraculous cures with stem cells. Some of these clinics are using umbilical cord blood.