GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Former NFL players turn to stem-cell therapies for help

sábado, 17 de febrero de 2018

Former NFL players turn to stem-cell therapies for help

Former NFL players turn to stem-cell therapies for help

Bioedge

Former NFL players turn to stem-cell therapies for help

by Xavier Symons | 17 Feb 2018 |

Former NFL players are turning to unapproved stem-cell treatments to deal with chronic pain and neurodegenerative disease.

News services in Texas recently reported that several former members of the Dallas Cowboys had received experimental stem-cell therapy in Mexico to deal with pain and injuries.

Bob Lilly, once a top defensive lineman for the Cowboys, said he had received two separate treatments offered by Texas stem cell company Celltex.

“I have no pain,” Lilly said. “And that's pretty unusual when you've played 24 years of football”.

Several of Celltex’s treatments are yet to be approved by the FDA, and in many cases the company flies clients to Mexico to receive stem cell injections.

Rickey Dixon, who played six seasons in the NFL (1988-1993) took out a loan to receive experimental stem-cell therapy after he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s Disease in 2013. As a result of his neurodegenerative disorder, Dixon is now confined to a wheelchair and requires a feeding tube to eat.

While many doctors are enthusiastic about the promise of stem cell therapies to treat brain damage, neurologist Michael De Georgia of Cleveland Medical Centre has sounded a note of caution:

“we need to be very cautious about claims and promises to patients who may be under the assumption or the belief that this therapy has been shown to be effective, and it hasn't”.

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Last year the London Telegraph ran a travel article about Belgium, “10 reasons why Belgium is not as boring as you think”. A bit patronising, right?

Personally, I’d never call a country which has dared to legalise euthanasia boring. Anything but. This is a defiant poke in the eye to hundreds of years of Western civilisation. Whether you agree with Belgium’s regime of legalised euthanasia or not, it is a wildly exciting experiment in disrupting established social norms.

The latest news is that a whistleblower has accused the country’s euthanasia commission of breaking the law, muzzling dissent, and packing the commission with euthanasia practitioners. In other countries this would be called corruption. The whistleblower's letter to the Belgian Parliament is a searing indictment of a respected institution. You would think that the Belgian media would be baying for blood.

Nope. It was an American news agency, Associated Press, which broke the story. As far as I can see, it has been reported around the world, but not in Belgium. It’s a funny kind of journalism which ignores such a big story. Perhaps the media there believes that Belgium really is as boring as you think. Or perhaps they are in the pocket of the euthanasia lobby.