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| |  Cord Blood Banking Could Become a Routine Part of Pregnancy Planning LOS ANGELES, May 13, 1996 -- During a Town Meeting moderated by Larry King in Los Angeles, transplant physicians, obstetricians and medical ethicists all agreed that cord blood banking would soon become a routine part of pregnancy planning. By saving cord blood at birth, families retain a back-up blood and immune system for their children. By donating it, they help build a vital public resource to aid in the treatment of tens of thousands of patients each year who require a bone marrow transplant. "It's a tragic fact that ten to fifteen thousand patients die each year for lack of a suitable bone marrow donor," said Larry Andreini, Executive Director of the International Cord Blood Foundation. "Now that we know cord blood has the same life-saving properties as bone marrow, we must stop throwing it away." The International Cord Blood Foundation's first Town Meeting titled "Cord Blood: Why Women Need to Know" brought together such experts as Dr. Michael Amylon, head of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Stanford University Medical Center, Dr. Paul Wolpe, Director of the Project on Informed Consent at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics, Dr. Peter Weiss, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UCLA School of Medicine and Dr. David Harris, Professor of Immunology at the University of Arizona and the first person in the United States to privately bank umbilical cord blood. There was unanimous agreement that cord blood banking will soon become a part of every mother's pregnancy planning. "Collecting cord blood is a very simple procedure that carries absolutely no risk to mother or child," said Dr. Richard Schwarz, immediate past president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a professor at the State University of New York Health Science Center. "As obstetricians we must make sure every expectant mother is informed of her option to either save it for her own family or donate it for the public good." Cord blood, the blood that remains in the umbilical cord following birth, has been found to contain the same disease-fighting cells as bone marrow. Following chemotherapy or radiation, these cells can be transplanted to grow new and healthy blood and immune systems in treated patients. Today, though, umbilical cord blood is routinely discarded after birth. "For years we've known that cord blood contained stem cells, but until recently we did not know how effective it would be in transplant," said Dr. Harris. "Now that we have completed over 200 cord blood transplants, we know it works. Saving cord blood is a form of insurance, 'biological insurance,' that guarantees immediately available cells in the event your child is ever inflicted with one of these life-threatening diseases. That's why we saved it for our children." According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the advantages of cord blood over bone marrow include lower cost, risk-free collection and reduced rejection if used in transplant. But it also cautions donor banks and researchers against collecting cord blood without "meaningful consent" from the mother because "preservation has very real implications for parent and child." It stated, "infants themselves have some claim on their own placental blood for use later in life. After all, it is the infant's own blood that is being stored." For more information on cord blood banking, contact the International Cord Blood Foundation toll-free at 1-888-CORD-BLOOD.
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