Stem Cell Ethics, Politics, Present & Future

In this documentary style video Matthew Nickels, freelance producer in Los Angeles discusses stem cells. He works on commercials and promos and has been a co-producer of a documentary. His father had leukemia nothing worked, so they did a bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow transplants are the same thing as an adult stem cell transplant, according to Matthew. His uncle matched his dad and he had a bone marrow transplant in 2003. It regenerates your immune system and helps makes your body cancer free. Adult stem cells were discovered in the 1960′s. His father developed Graft Versus Host Disease in 2010 and passed away, this is a side effect that can happen with donor bone marrow transplants. The body accepts the cells but later on it may realize it is not their cells and attacks them.

Teri Figarola from Delaware Technical and Community College, Stanton Campus discusses her decision to have an adult stem cell transplant for her Multiple Sclerosis as soon as a trial or treatment is available to her. She mentions having a hard time trying to explain what fatigue is really like. She says “Fatigue, the overwhelming fatigue; you get too tired to read, too tired to talk, that kind of exhaustion is hard to explain to people.”

The last twenty minutes or so they go over some of the ethics and politics currently being debated on stem cell research and the types of stem cells. They also mentioned the current conferences about stem cells like the World Stem Cell Summit and StemConn.

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