Stem cell treatments

[lamiss]

I would like to know , what is the position of the church in this kind of treatment?
I know that in the past it was not approved because the cells were taken from fetus, but what if they are taken from the person’s self marrow?.
Thank you for your help

 

[manualman]

Treatments using “adult” stem cells either from the patient or another human being not harmed in the collection of said cells is perfectly acceptable. Even when these adult stem cells are modified to be “pluripotent” it is still acceptable.

When a human being is created and cloned numerous times then killed for use in therapy and treatment, that’s not OK. This is referred to as “Embryonic stem cell treatments” and it doesn’t really exist yet, it is only something being experimented on in laboratories with OUR tax money. (Vote 'em out.)

The difference is that in once case two half strands come together to make a uniquely new life form (conception). In the other, existing cells are modified for the treatment and no new human being is created.

 

[Moscati]

Stem cells from umbilical cord blood are also acceptable, in addition to bone marrow.

 

[lamiss]

thank you very much for your answers, it have been very helpul.
GOD BLESS YOU

 

[cfdmpo]

It does need to be stated that all treatments available using stem cells are using “adult” stem cells. There has not been one treatment created using embryonic stem cells, despite the millions of public and private dollars spent on this. Al Gore wouldn’t even invest in embryonic stem cell research.

 

[rwoehmke]

Some stem cells can be collected from one’s own blood. My daughter had Hodgkins Disease and they removed stem cells from her blood, cleaned them up, and froze them until they had knocked out her immune system and bone marrow to kill the cancer. They then reinjected her own stem cells to reestablish her ability to produce new blood cells in the bone marrow and to restart her immune system. It was a bloody miracle in my opinion. She is ten years in remission this year. Thanks also to Blessed Father Solanus Casey for his intercession.

 

[Jermosh]

I forget the actual timeline, but Adult Stem Cells (ASC) are present early in life. Embryonic Stem Cells (ESC) are only around for a few days or maybe weeks after conception.

For treatment, the only place where there would be a moral issue with ASC is if they came from a immoral act. Like Abortion, or forcing it from someone.

As for ESC, there are some issues that need to be looked at. If the therapy relied on the constant death of embryos, then its certain immoral for such treatment. If it was attained from the use or research of a certain line of ESCs, then it depends. We have vaccines and cytotoxic techniques that came from horrid acts of abortion and live experimentation of people and war crimes, are they moral to use? Ultimately we must attempt to find the most moral route. But we cannot in anyway support such acts, yeah I know it sounds like you can eat the cake as well.

 

[choy]

the Church doesn’t oppose stem cell treatments or research, it only opposes immoral ways of obtaining them

as mentioned, any method that involves the destruction of life, such as obtaining from embryos, is evil because it causes the death of the embryo

any other method that doesn’t involve the death of another person is okay with the Church.

on a side note, my wife and i seriously considered saving my son’s cord blood stem cells upon birth, but the ridiculously high costs prevented us from doing so. what a waste though that the umbillical cord and planceta were just thrown away after birth with potentially life saving cord blood stem cells in them