Stem Cells and Autism

[Guest guest]

     Never heard of this until now but did a little research of my own. 

The

autism team at my local medical center whom we take my son to, pointed me to

this blog as a source of information for stem cell therapy.  Interestingly,

this

article was updated today.  This sounds like a " treatment " with some serious

potential for harm.

 

http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=182

Quote from blog:

 

     Part of the problem with using stem cells to treat autism is that we

don’t

know what we are treating. Despite the enthusiastic promotion of various

“theories†about what causes autism, there is no generally agreed upon

pathology

or “lesion†to treat. Even genetic studies fail to show one single genetic

cause

of autism, suggesting that what we call “autism†is a number of different

disorders with a similar (or not so similar) appearance. Injecting stem cells in

the vague hope that they will find the problem and fix it is foolish. Stem cells

have no more idea of how to “fix†autism than we do - which is to say,

“noneâ€.

 

     The “good news†I referred to above is that, based on the

descriptions of

what they are doing, the clinics where parents are taking their autistic

children for “stem cell therapy†are using - at best - multipotent blood

stem

cells. The descriptions are more promotional than informational, so it is

entirely possible that their “techniques†are yielding no stem cells

whatsoever. This is “good†because infusing real pluripotent stem cells

into the

blood or (worse yet) into the spinal fluid carries the risk of creating tumors

without any known (or even suspected) potential for benefit.

 

Shane Avery

father of , age 10