"Without independent, long-term evaluations of his patients, it is impossible to know how they are faring, or what difference -- for better or ill -- the treatments make. Without this information, there is no way that patients can balance the true risks and potential benefits. And, Dobkin and others said, there is no way to learn anything from what Huang is doing with his human guinea pigs."
     From " Chinese surgeon's claims about cell implants disputed," Boston Globe, June 19.

If you are a long-time reader of National Right to Life News, you know that the "pro-life newspaper of record" has countless times documented the absurd hype surrounding a laundry list of ethically-challenged "therapies." The sky-is-the-limit potential attributed to stem cells lethally harvested from human embryos is only the latest in a long line.

But often we forget that there still exists a cadre who remain insistent that tissue extracted from aborted babies is a modern elixir, capable of providing nothing short of miraculous cures. Leading (so to speak) the pack in that dubious department is Beijing's Dr. Hongyun Huang, who has been profiled in countless adoring press stories.

As the Globe's Gareth Cook wrote ten days ago, "For many patients with spinal cord injuries and other incurable maladies, Dr. Hongyun Huang has been the great hope. Hundreds of patients from across the United States and around the world have flocked to his Beijing surgery practice, where Huang implants cells with what he says are amazing healing powers."

Dr. Hongyun Huang

According to Cook, Huang uses cells from aborted fetuses "that he says have regenerative power, the way stem cells do"--a falsehood piled on top of another falsehood.

But until recently, no outside doctors had "carefully examining patients before and after -- considered a crucial test of any medical procedure," Cook writes. But that all changed when a team of doctors "finished the first independent, scientifically rigorous assessment of Huang's work," Cook writes. "The results, published in the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair, are not just disappointing, they are disturbing, say scientists who have read the paper."

The journal article points out that none of the seven spinal cord injury patients the doctors followed experienced significant improvements, "and five suffered potentially dangerous complications."

"One man who went to Beijing with damage to his spinal cord returned with holes drilled in his head -- apparently Huang had placed cells in the man's brain, not his spinal cord," Cook writes. No wonder Dr. Kevin C. O'Connor, medical director of the spinal cord injury program at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, told Cook, "This is extremely damning of Dr. Huang's work," adding, "It is pretty scary stuff."

According to Cook, Huang's explanation is that he injects his patients with "olfactory ensheathing cells."

"These cells are thought to help nerves repair themselves by releasing growth factors," Cook writes. "The cells have been shown to repair nerves in animals, but there is no evidence they help people."

Huang's team "extracts these cells from aborted fetuses and then opens up a hole in the patient's brain or spinal cord, injecting the cells," Cook writes. "In presentations at scientific conferences, he has said he has helped many patients and has seen no serious side effects."

But as time went by, various scientists approached Huang to ask questions. Huang began referring patients to one of them--Dr. Bruce H.Dobkin--who is one of the authors of the Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair article. Dobkin told Cook he approached Huang after hearing a presentation at a scientific conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Two other doctors subsequently joined Dobkin, medical director of the Neurologic Rehabilitation and Research Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, in "conduct[ing] extensive evaluations of the patients before and after the Beijing procedure." They used a standardized test to measure patient improvement which "showed that there were no meaningful improvements in any of the patients after the surgery," Cook writes.

So what explains the alleged improvement? Dobkin "attributes the improvements the patients noted to the power of the placebo effect, compounded by the pressure they feel to improve, having just spent what is reported to be more than $20,000 on the surgery."

Dobkin not only believes that Huang's efforts are ineffective, but also "fears that patients are not properly considering the risks that the procedure will worsen their condition. One patient, Dobkin said, was able to walk but wanted help with a bladder problem, and Huang drilled a hole near her neck, exposing the spinal cord for an injection of cells," according to Cook.

"It is just nonsense," Dobkin said. "That he would even agree to do this is really frightening to me." He told Cook of a number of side effects, including meningitis, pneumonia, and gastrointestinal bleeding. "Such side effects in a patient who is already quite sick can set off a cascade of medical problems," according to Dobkin.

Cook's own skepticism is unmistakable in his closing paragraph.

"Without independent, long-term evaluations of his patients, it is impossible to know how they are faring, or what difference -- for better or ill -- the treatments make. Without this information, there is no way that patients can balance the true risks and potential benefits. And, Dobkin and others said, there is no way to learn anything from what Huang is doing with his human guinea pigs."

If you have any questions or comments, send them to Dave Andrusko at dandrusko@nrlc.org.