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STEM CELL THERAPY!!

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Zaini:
Hi again :)

Due to election holidays, i have a bit more time to my hand, so i am continuously searching more and more about this therapy on net,and while searching i found that when an advertisement was placed by tristem in a leading news paper here in Karachi,a doctor from a well known hospital in Karachi sent his concern to the news paper.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/09/24/letted.htm#7


--- Quote ---I WOULD like to share my concerns, both as physician and bioethicist, about an advertisement that appeared in a section of the press last week. A private company has advised hospitals that it has machines available for stem cell therapy to treat thalassaemia and other diseases by employing oretro differentiation technology.

With its choice of words, intentional or otherwise, this advertisement is liable to lead lay people to the mistaken conclusion that a cure has been found for thalassaemia (and other unnamed diseases).

At the same time, it lays open the door for unwitting and unscrupulous healthcare professionals to exploit this public misunderstanding.

In the absence of ethical guidelines, negligible oversight processes at institutional and national levels, and lack of regulation of healthcare services, it is not difficult to imagine a proliferation of clinics and hospitals promising desperate patients treatments for all manner of illnesses by using stem cells.

Another concern is that it adds to the hype, generally nurtured by commercial interests, that presents stem cell biotechnology as the panacea for all human ills. Recent advances in adult and embryonic stem cell research hold great promise, but their translation into safe clinical application is some years away.

This is not to imply that in specific areas stem cells are not already playing a part in treating certain diseases. As an example, following years of carefully controlled clinical trials, adult stem cell (bone marrow) transplantation is accepted as a therapeutic modality for acquired conditions such as leukaemia and certain blood disorders.

Thalassaemia, on the other hand, is a genetic disorder, and any measure that does not alter the inherited genetic defect cannot be considered therapeutic in nature. To date, there is no research, let alone clinical examples, or scientific publication, that I am aware of in which this has been accomplished using retro- or de-differentiated adult stem cells.

Controlled clinical research trials are under way in some countries to test adult stem cell capacity to repair/regenerate heart muscles and nerve tissue. But these are clearly categorized as research, not presented as established therapy. These trials are undertaken only after rigorous review and approval by institutional research committees, require full disclosure of the nature and risks of the research to the patient, and his or her voluntary consent to serve as subject for the study.

None of these mechanisms are in place in Pakistan, leaving our public at great risk of exploitation.

DR FARHAT MOAZAM
Professor and Chairperson,
Centre of Biomedical Ethics and Culture, SIUT,
RKarachi

--- End quote ---

And after a few days a reply came from Dr Ilham's spokesperson ,

http://www.dawn.com/2005/10/02/letted.htm#5


--- Quote ---THIS has reference to Dr Farhat Moazzam’s letter “Stem cell therapy” (Sept 24).

I am disappointed at the attitude of senior medical healthcare professionals towards the introduction of cutting-edge, innovative and low-cost medical technologies that may alleviate suffering and benefit patients for whom there is very little hope in conventional medicines/medical treatments.

I am particularly surprised at the “grave concern” expressed by Dr Moazzam on the advertisement placed in Dawn on Sept 11. Not one of the doctors and/or professors of medicine who have been criticizing the pioneering new, patented and validated technology, including Dr Moazzam, appear to have made the effort to actually contact the doctors involved in the project or directly to get further information on retrodifferentiated stem cell therapy and its benefits.

None of the eminent doctors have gone to TriStem Corporation’s website (www.tristemcorp.com) or Google.com (search word “Ilham Abuljadayel”) to try and get information on the history of this technology and/or the scientific research conducted by Dr Ilham Abuljadayel since 1990. Instead, they are criticizing a revolutionary technology and may be discouraging terminally-ill patients (with no conventional medical options) to look at stem cell therapy.

At no point in time have any of our advertisements claimed a “cure” for any/all diseases. We have advertised a “treatment” of diseases in which conventional medicine has either been ineffective or does not have a treatment.

In Beta Thalassaemia Major, a genetic disorder for which Dr Moazzam has claimed that nothing is possible using retrodifferentiation, our results (verified by two independent laboratories including the Aga Khan University Hospital Lab) show a significant decrease in transfusion requirements and a drop in iron load as measured by Serum Ferritin “without” any chelation within a period of 1.2 weeks.

In every discussion with inquiring patients, we have advised all parties involved on the nature of this new treatment.

We plan to present the benefits of retrodifferentiated stem cell therapy and the results obtained thus far through an open seminar for all concerned to be held in Karachi very shortly and publish the findings to-date in the appropriate forum.

TARIQ MUMTAZ
Karachi

--- End quote ---

I know i am posting too much about this, but i am just trying to find a ray of hope.

ZAINI.

Zaini:
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/archive/050723/science12.htm



--- Quote ---Stem cell therapy

For the first time, more than 25 thalassaemic patients in Pakistan were recently treated with their own stem cells, reducing the blood transfusion frequency and lowering their iron overload considerably.

Dr Ilham Saleh Abuljadayel — a Saudi-born, UK-based cellular biologist — and Dr Huma Qureshi, director of the Pakistan Medical and Research Council, last week made public the findings of the study, involving a total of 28 patients, at the Orthopaedic and Medical Institute (OMI) in Karachi.

On the occasion, Dr Ilham said the autologous stem cell therapy introduced reduced the dependence of thalassaemic people on blood transfusion by up to 70 per cent, without the need for an HLA matched donor, growth factors and invasive surgery.

“We have witnessed significant reduction in their (patients’) iron overload as measured by serum ferritin by between 15 and 50 per cent without the use of any form of chelation in a span of 4 to 12 weeks,” she said.

The stem cell therapy Dr Ilham has devised is presently being applied to treat aplastic anaemia, leukemia, sickle cell anaemia, spinal cord injury, type-I diabetes, muscular dystrophy, Alzheimer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, motor neuron disease and heart disease.

According to Dr Ilham, a team of doctors at OMI has applied the stem cell technology to a 24-year-old diabetic girl, who started synthesizing her own insulin within four weeks of the treatment. “It is amazing as her insulin requirement dropped significantly and her eczema disappeared too.”

President Pervez Musharraf was the chief guest at the reception at which the new treatment was formally introduced to the media as well as the medical community.

--- End quote ---

Sharmin:
Thank you Zaini, I so hope that this therapy works.
 :pray :pray :pray :pray :pray :pray :pray

Danielle:

--- Quote from: ZAINI on February 17, 2008, 07:19:42 AM ---Hey Danielle and Sharmin,You are wlcome to Pakistan anyway, :hugfriend :hugfriend
Just land here and we girls will have fun  :wink

--- End quote ---

Thanks, Zaini.  That would be awesome.  :biggrin


--- Quote from: ZAINI on February 17, 2008, 08:19:09 AM ---I know i am posting too much about this, but i am just trying to find a ray of hope.

--- End quote ---

You are not posting "too much" at all.  Thank you for the information. :hugfriend

Zaini:
Hi,

I am extremely sorry for this late reply, but my laptop was and is out of order,right now i am on my kid's PC ,It's kinda weird  using a PC after a long time,pardon me for typing mistakes as i have to wrestle with their keyboar to type  :mad

After the election holidays wre over,i tried calling healthcare intl again, i was told that Mr Tariq Mumtaz is out of country but i can talk to his assistant,after callong so many times i was able to get his assistant on phone,who like Mr Tariq Mumtaz is not a dr,He asked me about Zainab's illness and that from where did i find their reference,i told him an asked him that what is the progress of thal major patients they are treating,he said they are generally in better condition,i told him that my main concern is stopping transfusions as they have claimed so on their website, but he told me that transfusions are not stopped,it never happened with any of their patients,i was so startled ,i said but it's written on your website ? and he was simply like no it didn't happen,i told him that i still want to meet Tariq Mumtaz ( i was thinking about pinning him down on this infoirmation oir claims made on his site) but he told me that i'l have to pay rs 3000 just to visit him , i said why would i pay such an amount of money when i don't even have a proof that your treatment is working,can you give any contact numbers of any of your patients, he said yes,and after 2 days i.e today he caled me and gave me the numbers.

I haven't caled these numbers yet,it has happened to me before,when few years ago i met them they gave me the numbers and when i called those numbers, the parents of those kids were so poor and illiterate that they din't even know what is ferritin.i don't know if there are the same kids but i will call them ,although i am not very hopeful.

Sorry to misguide you all.

ZAINI. 

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