Nowadays, there are many alternatives or any other methods to improve the healthcare especially in a transplantation world. There are few choices available for the people today such as the embryonic stem cells, bone marrow stem cells, peripheral blood cell and the most new is the umbilical cord blood. The umbilical cord blood (UCB) defined by Chima and Mamdoo (2011, p. 79) as the blood which taken from the cut umbilical cord attached to the placenta of a newborn baby after a delivery. It been stated (Chima and Mamdoo 2011, p. 79) that the cord derived from the allantois have a rich source of multipotent stem cells, including the CD34+ , CD38- and haematopoietic progenitor cells. This shows that the cord blood could be more potential as the bone marrow cell in the patients with the haematological or non-haematological problems. The first successful umbilical cord transplantation done was in 1989 in a child with a Fanconi’s anemia and since then, the growth or demand for the cord blood increased. As we can see, this contributed to a major reason for the need of umbilical cord blood donation, storage, processing, freezing, and releasing of cord blood to the patient. Thus, establishment of the cord blood bank (CBB) because of the demand increased (Ballen 2010, p. 8). As mentioned by Ballen (2005, p. 3786), the first establishment of cord blood bank was in the early 1990s in New York, Milan, and Dusseldorf. The storage of the cord blood could last for about 15 years (Fadel 2006, p. 1). The point is that there are many ethical and legal issues raised by this CBB that need clarification and justification like the informed consent, ownership and property rights, collection of cord blood, and public CBB vs private CBB.
As mentioned earlier, there are issues on informed consent but what is actually the informed consent is all about and what is the thing that need to be considered for this cord blood banking. Firstly, what is mean by informed consent is the permission given from someone of one behalf to another behalf. According to Petrini (2010, p. 140), there were some kinds of elements of process leading to informed consent found by Beauchamp and Childress. The first one is the threshold elements (preconditions) which to understand and decide. Second, the information element, which means to make things clear or clarify the information given, the good recommendation of plan and to understand the previous elements.
Research on human fetal life involves numerous complex medical, moral, and legal aspects. It is not always easy, nor desirable, to seal off one aspect from another. Both sides of fetal tissue use will be equally focused on as a moral issue. The topic is a timely and important one because research on human fetal life is reportedly a growing industry and the subject of legal developments both in the United States and around the world.
Stem Cells: What, How and Why? Stem cells are infinitely valuable when considering their potential applications in the medical profession. While current legislative restrictions have halted the development of new ?stem cell lines? to any agency or company that receives any form of governmental grants, there is no question that the medical profession is standing at the brink of a new era of technological advancements in healthcare and research.
Umbilical cord blood banking has been a new topic for the media and public. Science has shown there are copious benefits and a few drawbacks with the use of cord blood. One of these drawbacks is the cost of cord blood banking. If insurance companies were to be mandated to cover cord blood banking, then more people could reap in the benefits of having cord blood stored.
Whereas there are many facets of medical research in the world at the present time, one of the more controversial continues to be stem cell research and more specifically, embryonic stem cell research. The percentage of groups and individuals who agree or disagree with this science are roughly equal on both sides of the argument. There are many quarrels within this one area including “should stem cell research be federally funded”, “is embryonic stem cell research ethical”, and “is the outcome of stem cell research worth it”? While there is no right or wrong answer to these questions, since the answer would vary depending on whom you ask, the argument regarding this topic remains quite passionate and heated.
Stem cell research is one of the most widely expanding areas of scientific research being conducted all over the world today. In basic terms, stem cell research is the research of stem cells; however in actuality is much more complicated. A stem cell is a cell with the ability to develop into any of the cell types that make up the tissues and organs of the body. This makes these cells highly useful and provides endless opportunities in the field of regenerative medicine.
There are three ways to acquire a sample of stem cells. The first method is very controversial, which is the extraction of an embryonic cell. This embryonic cell can be extracted from aborted fetuses, with the permission of the woman having the abortion. Most people find it unethical to use the fetuses. However, if you do not use it, it just goes to waste. Why not let the fetus help save someone’s life? The second method to extract stem cells are through umbilical cords. The umbilical cord is rich with stem cells. Blood cells from the newborn baby can be used the moment it...
In the meantime, while several studies revolve around UCB banking pros and cons, a surprisingly little or no research has examined the key contributing factors in private cord blood banking in marketing-oriented literature review. In view of this gap in prior studies, this research investigated the factors motivating people to bank UCB. The research draws on the concept of perceived risk to propose a conceptual model to address the hypothesized relationships. We propose a conceptual framework to point out whether UCB awareness, usability, reference group, price and disease history may influence the perceived risk and accordingly behavioral intention to privately bank UCB stem cells.
The New England Journal of Medicine (2005) states that a Cord Blood Transplant is when the blood from a newborns umbilical cord is taken and given to another infant. Healthy umbilical cord blood is new and has little to none bacteria or diseases that could harm someone. Usually the placenta and umbilical cord is thrown out, but in recent research it is found that the blood from the umbilical cord and placenta can help prevent or slow down Krabbe Disease. According to Escolar, Yelin, & Poe (2006) about 90% of the children that were used in their study for
Doctors now have three sources of stem cells available to them: bone marrow, mobilized bone marrow or peripheral blood, and umbilical cord blood. Bone marrow has traditionally been used as a source of stem cells, but research is proving that cord blood may be an excellent alternative source. Cord blood can be utilized for the treatment of many diseases, including leukemia, sickle cell anemia, and Hodgkin's disease. The first successful cord blood transplant took place in 1988 when a newborn's cord blood was used in a life saving stem cell transplant for her older brother .
Therefore, many parents believe that banking umbilical cord is unique opportunity to save these stem cells in order to guarantee 100% match for their baby in case treatments is ever required6. One of the few disadvantages of this source of stem cells, there are limit amount of haematopoietic stem cells that can be extracted from each cord blood units. In addition, the UCB cells take longer to engraft than do stem cells from more mature sources. This delay leaves the recipients vulnerable to infection. In spite of certain disadvantage cord blood has huge potential in medical treatments3. Likewise, donating cord blood is generous gift that basically doesn’t cause harm or problem to the donors and may save or improve quality of someone’s life4. However, UCB stem cell donation and preservation are endorsed by many world religions. Though, there are many ethical concern including proper informed consent, genetic screening of the donors, autologous & allogenic UCB storage, truth in advertising by private banks and distributive justice6. In addition to cord blood banking, the expectant parents also have a chance to store their new-born baby’s cord tissues. Umbilical cord tissue (Wharton’s jelly) is rich source of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs)10. It has abilities to self-renew and differentiate into many tissues cellular tissues including adipocytes, osteocytes, chondrocytes, cardiomyocytes, hepatocytes and nerve cells. Their proliferative properties have abilities to migrate at site of inflammation which makes MSCs highly desirable for tissue engendering and cells based
Another positive implication of the approach is that stem cells donated from a savior sibling offers a substantial prospect of benefit to the older sibling who is sick. This reduces the suffering of the older sick child. Additionally, there is minimal risk to serving as a stem cell donor for the savior sibling. Since stem cells are harvested from the umbilical cord which would have been discarded otherwise, the process is harmless and painless for the
...herefore needs to be free of pathogens before it can be used. Finally, it must be compatible with the patient otherwise other illnesses may occur. Without research scientists wouldn’t have been able to look into donated blood and therefore they wouldn’t have began to develop artificial blood, making a doctors job much more difficult than it can be with this alternative way of transfusing blood.
In most hospital delivery rooms, the doctors will routinely clamp and sever the umbilical cord with in fifteen to thirty seconds of the mother giving birth. When clamping the cord, the doctors will clamp the cord in two places, one close to the infant and then again in the middle of the cord another clamp. By delaying the clamping, fetal blood in the placental transfusion can provide the infant with an additional thirty percent more blood volume and up to sixty percent more blood cells (McDonald, S., & Middleton, P., 2009). This reduces the risk of the hemorrhaging that could occur after birth. But with new ongoing studies, it is said that by delaying the clamping of the cor...
In a future of engineering where life like robots are being made its only time for scientist and doctors to start cloning organs. Therapeutic cloning is a breakthrough in science and would lead to scientist being able to regrow tissue and especially organs that won’t be rejected by the patients immune system. It’s also known as somatic cell nucleic transfer, is the process ( shown in figure1) of which scientists remove a nucleus from any somatic cell in the body which carries the genetic material. And is then transferred into an unfertilised egg, which nucleus has been removed as well. This can then be used to collect human embryonic stem cells with certain characteristics that scientist can use to develop patient- and disease- cell based therapies or tissue replacements (http://www.stemcellfoundation.net.au).
Blood donation is a very essential procedure in the health system. The process entails collecting blood from willing donors, testing it and then separating it into its components so that it can be used on patients. Whereas hospitals are the main users of the donated blood, they are not exactly authorised to collect, test and separate it in their own premises. Most of the health institutions get the blood from larger bodies such as the Red Cross or other Community based blood groups. Though initially faced with lots of problems, blood transfusion has been used since 1667 as a solution to some of human illnesses. Since then to now, hospitals have grown so dependent on blood donation and transfusion to save human life. With it being used and applied