Obama / stem cells
Welcome, and thank you for reading again. In this latest blog I’ll mention issues which are loosely connected (at least in my mind), namely the Obama administration and the increasing relevance of stem cell research.
Firstly and unashamedly I’m a fan of Barack Obama. Because I live in Australia however I do not need to immerse myself in US domestic politics, as it doesn’t directly impact on me. In that regard I shall strive to keep this site free of partisan political issues. What does impact directly on me however are scientific developments and potential developments which augur well for the treatment of, and recovery from, MS. And this is where, for me, the election of Barack Obama becomes interesting.
You might recall earlier this year the big news item was that the Obama parents bought a puppy for the girls. I say “big news item” seriously because the at-times-flippancy of the media elevates small stories into big ones. While that may have been the case here, I feel without any cynicism that the world needs lightweight harmless good news stories now and again. Otherwise we tend to forget our collective humanity – and two innocent kids getting a puppy, at arguably the most important residential address in the world, is both a heart-warming story and by the public’s appetite a big one. The relevance of this however to MS is more subtle. Michelle Obama was raised in Chicago and was very close to her father, who by all accounts was loving, aspirational, and worked hard in the interest of his kids having a better life than he did. His nickname “(Bo) Diddley” is where the puppy Bo derives its name from – and, according to my newspaper, Fraser Robinson “worked shifts at the city water plant despite the multiple sclerosis which was crippling him”. Michelle Obama then, as a consequence, brought to the White House an acute appreciation of life with MS.
Eight months later in July this year it was announced that medical researchers around the world would have access to US funds for embryonic stem cell research. This was an Obama initiative overturning a presidential ban by George Bush on funding some 8 years earlier. Proponents of the research grants were ecstatic, believing embryonic stem cells are at the cutting edge of regenerative medicine and are likely to be proven beneficial for mainstream treatment of debilitating diseases such as MS, diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. I have in that regard read the two books written by the actor Michael J Fox about his illness and from that reading appreciate how hard he lobbied for such research, and how pleased he was with the Obama decision on funding.
I share such pleasure and optimism, and believe the era we live in will bring important medical advances – and the speed at which that will happen might well be breathtaking. As an example, and overlapping with embryonic stem cell research we have wider new stem cell developments generally – such as the field of induced pluripotency where patient’s cells can be reprogrammed into embryonic stem cells.
My training is as a lawyer, not a scientist or ethicist. I can only observe these developments from the sideline – from there however I see developments such as that which occurred last week, where a 19 year old youth in Australia at death’s door had his MS symptoms reversed and made a recovery, after receiving modified stem cells, which could only be described as spectacular. I see in that article that the risk of death has reduced in recent times from 8% to 1%, and there is a 60 to 80% chance downward progress can be halted. I also noted, after I set up my own blog site, that there is a very good blog by another “Ken” … Ken’s MS Blog by a Canadian gentleman which covers his stem cell treatment in China. He has also posted a YouTube video on his experience. And incidentally I know a woman who is currently visiting Cologne Germany having stem cell treatment. I wish her my very best wishes, and hope when I see her in the new year she’ll be able to beat me hands-down in our walking-stick races down the corridor. 
All of this research is good news, and augurs well for the future in relation to scientific intervention to improve MS. It is particularly optimistic news for people with advanced, highly debilitating MS. If you have read my blogs to date, you will know that I am also an adherent to the MS diet advocated (and in my view proven) by medical practitioners such as Professor George Jelinek in Australia and the late great Dr Roy Swank in Oregon – coupled with the therapies of meditation/ regular exercise/ physiotherapy/ and yoga. I do not believe in “fighting” MS, either fighting per se or by tackling MS by any one discipline alone (such as science), but rather feel that a multi-pronged approach to treatment is the best – and I believe these therapies are fundamental to such an approach.