The Proven Results of Adult Stem Cells
Part Two of Two

By Liz Townsend

In all the media hype about the “potential” of embryonic stem cells, the truth is often ignored or disregarded—adult stem cells are successfully treating patients now. Attendees at the 2009 NRL Convention session “What Stem Cells Can Do for You” learned about the people who are alive today because of treatments using adult stem cells.

The session’s speakers were David Prentice, Ph.D., senior fellow for life sciences at the Family Research Council and a founding member of Do No Harm, the Coalition of Americans for Research Ethics, and Carol Franz, whose multiple myeloma cancer was treated with adult stem cells.

Dr. David Prentice and Carol Franz

Prentice began by making a clear, irrefutable distinction between the types of stem cells. “When somebody says ‘stem cells,’” he told the audience, “right away you want to know, are you talking about embryonic, which destroys a human life and hasn’t helped a single person, or adult stem cells, which does not require the harm of the donor and has helped thousands of people.”

Stem cells have two characteristics: they keep growing and dividing, and “if you give a stem cell the right signal, it should specialize or differentiate into any of the various tissues of the body,” Prentice explained. However, embryonic stem cells are so unspecified that in all animal tests so far, uncontrollable tumors have formed.

In sharp contrast, adult stem cells from sources like umbilical cords and bone marrow do not form tumors but can differentiate into various types of cells, as has been shown in actual treatments in people. “When you look at just the published scientific evidence,” said Prentice, “there are at least 73 different diseases and injuries where adult stem cells have already helped human patients, saved lives, and improved health. Thousands of patients.”

Prentice detailed just a few of these thousands of adult stem cell treatments. Some of the success stories include:

• Caitlin McNamara, who had a functional bladder created out of her own adult stem cells
• Jim Herman, who considers himself cured after his brother donated bone marrow stem cells to treat his leukemia
• Steven Sprague, whose leukemia was treated 12 years ago with umbilical cord blood stem cells
• Keone Penn, whose severe, life-threatening sickle cell anemia is gone after treatment with cord blood cells
• Jackie Rabon, who can walk again despite a spinal cord injury after she received a transplant of her own stem cells
• Dennis Turner, whose own adult stem cells were injected into his brain, which alleviated his Parkinson’s disease symptoms
• Roland Henrich, who was one of the first patients treated for stroke with adult stem cells

Carol Franz told her own inspiring story. “I have survived two bouts of multiple myeloma,” Franz said. “They call it an incurable cancer. I let them say that, but as far as I’m concerned my God is curing me.”

After having chemotherapy to clear away her diseased cells, one ounce of her own adult stem cells was slowly injected into her body. “They gravitated to bones, set themselves, and began the process of growing me a new bloodstream and new immune system, and I was physically born all over again,” said Franz.

Franz is now outspoken in her desire to educate others about the uses of adult stem cells, which she calls “my own repair kit.” Her story, as well as the thousands of others also treated with adult stem cells, flies in the face of the hype over embryonic cells.

Insisted Prentice, “All the ethics aside—[if you just consider] practical facts--this is the stuff that helps patients.”

Part One