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Cord Blood Bank Account; Parents plan for stem cell cure-alls
By BLYTHE BERNHARD
Monterey County Herald
The Orange County Register
3 June 2006
Does your baby's umbilical cord hold a miracle?
It's a question posed every day to expectant parents through brochures and advertisements planted in doctors' offices and pregnancy magazines.
For a fee, usually about $2,000 upfront and $125 a year thereafter, a company will freeze and store the stem cells extracted from your baby's umbilical-cord blood. Then, the ads say, your child can wait for science to develop cure-alls using those stem cells to treat everything from Alzheimer's disease to diabetes and spinal injuries.
The idea is simple: Pay for possibility.
Banking on fear?
Depending on whom you ask, these private cord-blood banks are either selling an almost priceless form of medical insurance or are capitalizing on the buying power of nervous parents.
To understand the marketing of stem cells you've got to understand what they do.
Stem cells are the blank slates of the cell world. They're the cells that, as a human embryo becomes a baby, transform into the cells that form the brain, nerves and other body parts.
Some -- known as adult stem cells -- go partway toward making a particular organ but remain undeveloped. The body naturally uses these cells to repair damaged or diseased tissue in that organ.
The cord-blood banking companies pitch the idea that infusions of these stem cells from stored cord blood someday could encourage that same process as a medical treatment.
There are already viable medical uses for stem cells. Since 1988, cord-blood stem cells -- usually from a sibling or unrelated donor -- have been used to treat patients with rare blood disorders and cancers, such as sickle cell anemia and leukemia. The process is similar to bone marrow transplants for cancer patients, only it's less difficult to find a matching donor, less painful to extract the stem cells, and less likely the cells will be rejected.
More than 600 Americans a year receive cord-blood infusions, mostly from unrelated families who donated their babies' cord blood to public banks.
As these treatments developed, an industry grew around parents banking their own babies' cord blood in case the baby or a sibling (who has a 25 percent chance of being a viable match) got sick.
Enter the stem cell craze of the 21st century. Thanks to scientific advances and the political and religious debate surrounding discarded embryos, stem cells became a hot topic.
Two years ago California voters approved Proposition 71 to fund stem cell research. Last year, President Bush approved a $79 million national databank for public stores of cord blood so patients can search for matching donors.
The hoopla catapulted the fledgling industry of private cord-blood banks, which are regulated by the FDA.
"The marketplace changed. The value increased because stem cells were seen as a resource for emerging therapies," said Stephen Grant, 43, executive vice president of San Bruno-based Cord Blood Registry, one of the largest private banks.
Some European countries have banned private storage of cord blood in favor of nonprofit banks for public use. The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend private banking.
Paying for peace of mind
But banking in the U.S. is big business. The three largest banks have stored the cord blood of more than 300,000 babies. That adds up to more than $600 million paid by expectant parents.
Competition has cord-blood storage companies suing each other over which has the best technology and which stores the most blood.
Based on the current state of stem cell medicine, the odds of needing cord blood now are low. It's estimated that fewer than 100 withdrawals of privately stored cord blood have been made in the U.S., most for siblings with leukemia.
So the benefit, at least for now, is mostly a sense of security.
"It's peace of mind knowing it's there just in case," Grant said.
Critics say the companies are capitalizing on new parents' fears by offering hope of medical miracles that currently don't exist.
"The companies overstate the medical potential" of stem cells, said Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, director of the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplant Program at Duke University Medical Center.
"Parents should realize that right now we don't know what the applications may be in the future."
Kurtzberg and other doctors say they don't want families to feel guilty if they decide against private cord-blood banking.
She adds that there are other sources for stem cells, including an adult's bone marrow.
"If you want stem cells from your own body, they'll be obtainable."
So what do the scientists who specialize in stem cells have to say?
"I don't think the companies are necessarily duping people," said Peter Donovan, co-director of the University of California Irvine Stem Cell Research Center.
University of California Irvine scientists testing stem cells in rodents are working on possible treatments for spinal cord injury, Parkinson's disease and diabetes.
Donovan acknowledged that cord blood is proven in treating certain diseases. However, he said scientists have found it difficult to manipulate and expand the stem cells for use beyond those therapies.
Still, he added it's not a bad idea to have those cells on hand.
Cord-blood stem cells might one day be manipulated to form other cells. And the newborn cells might be more useful than cells that have been exposed to a lifetime of viruses and mutations.
Donovan says it's a risk worth taking. "Who knows what will come down the pike in the lifetime of those patients?
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