By Fred Jackson and Jody Brown
March 8, 2001

(AgapePress) - Advocates of using cells from aborted babies to treat people with Parkinson's Disease may have just suffered a major setback. A report out today on a controlled study into the procedure says it not only failed to show an overall benefit, but also revealed disastrous side effects.

Over the last few years, there has been a major push from some in the scientific community who say cells from aborted babies, implanted into the brains of people with Parkinson's Disease, might help relieve some of the symptoms. But according to a report published in today's New England Journal of Medicine, the first tests on humans have led to some horrific results.

The New York Times quotes the Journal report in saying that in about 15% of the tested patients, the cells from the aborted babies grew too well, churning out so much of a chemical that controls movement that the patients twisted and jerked uncontrollably. According to The Times, one of the researchers, Dr. Paul Greene of Columbia University, described the results as "absolutely devastating," "tragic," and "catastrophic." He also states that the researchers were unable to selectively "turn it off."

"They chew constantly, their fingers go up and down, their wrists flex and distend," Green told The Times in describing the patients. According to Greene, one patient was so badly affected by the procedure that he could no longer eat and had to use a feeding tube. The condition came and went unpredictably in another patient, he said, and the man's speech was unintelligible when the condition occurred. Greene says his position is clear: "No more fetal transplants."

The Times reports that the surgical procedure for implanting the cells took place in Colorado, and evaluation was done in New York. The surgery involved drilling four small holes in the patient's forehead and then inserting long needles through the holes into the brain, through which the cells were injected. Forty long-term Parkinson's patients were recruited for the research; some received the injected cells while others, for purposes of comparison, received "sham surgery" -- that is, the holes were drilled, but no cells were injected.

The fetal cells used in the human experiments were obtained from abortion clinics. In addition, as The Times notes, the results are surely to reignite the debate over whether society should condone the use of such tissue to treat any disease.

© 2001 AgapePress all rights reserved.

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