Has anyone undergone stem cell treatment for autism?
Has anyone undergone stem cell treatment for autism?
Dr Wakefield was convinced that MMR jabs caused autism. I suspect that he believed it and, like a detective who goes out to find the evidence that proves his case, pursued methods where the ends justifies the means. He was, I believe, mistaken and caused a fair amount of harm in the pursuit of his beliefs.
Hi WifWaf,
Good post - I wasn't aware that it is actually illegal in the US.
I guess I feel sorry for Sarah - if I was low functioning or a parent of a low functioning child then I can see how a treatment like that would be attractive. I also feel sorry for someone who has been taken in by unscrupulous charlatans. People with good intentions can also persuade themselves that the treatment that they offer is viable - perhaps Wakefield falls into this camp? People are impressionable and can fall for other people's schemes or even for their own schemes.
Thanks for posting that link. I'm afraid that I could not see any link between the information in "About Stem Cells" and autism.
[edited - I may have reacted badly to your post, I'm sorry for that]
You may believe that the stem cell therapy has benefited your children. If you want to persuade us that this actually caused any improvement then please provide some scientifically plausible reasons for it to be beneficial.
Hello,
No, I do not work for any clinic and I do not get paid for recommending stem cells. Please trust me that I tried diet and many other interventions. If you go to our webpage you can read about our family :) www.stemcelltherapyforautism.com
Regards,
Sarah
Unfortunately...
1) Stem Enhance hasn't been proven to do anything to stem cells www.drdalepeterson.com/Stemenhance_c3a2fd879733af43e7cd.html
2) We don't know whether this is a genuine post or an advertisement from someone claiming to be a speech therapist.
3) There have been lots of changes in this boy's life. We don't know whether the change was
a) spontaneous - the boy just overcame an obstacle on his own
b) the removal of the child from the speech therapists care may have allowed an improvement.
c) the new location or the removal process sparked some change
etc etc. The problem of post hoc ergo propter hoc has to be borne in mind with this sort of anecdotal evidence - something changed and it is tempting, but actually unsafe, to associate the change with the thing that we hoped would cause the change.
I had a patient, a 10-yr. old boy diagnosed with autism who had to stop having speech therapy with me because they lived too far. They had to take a boat or a plane just to see me every week. Recently, I got a message from the parent saying that her son has improved tremendously both in his behavior and in his speech due StemEnhance, a food supplement. Her son has been taking it since November 2014. It's something to look into for those who think it might benefit their children.
seriously your wanting to pump stem cells into your kids brain. which part of an autistic persons head is diffrent from a non autistic persons. untill we know the real cause or causes you cant realisticly treat it.
in early stem cell therapy for parkinsons a lot of folks were made worse. consider risks and side effects. i know some folks are desperate but its not something i would want done to me or mine.
I find it stunning that some people are willing to put their children through invasive experimental treatments before addressing diet/GI issues. ESPA have lots of info www.espa-research.org.uk/history.html and their philosophy is:
" We do not seek to "cure" autism but rather for those who require and wish it, to recognise & improve quality of life for people with autism spectrum conditions."
also check out www.treatingautism.co.uk
And agree with RS about the importance of encouragement and positive attention.
btw Sarah (not sure if you and Scinazxc2 are the same person?) - I'm sorry to sound cynical, but do these clinics pay you for recommending their treatments?
Placebos are effective too! One of the best interventions is lots of positive attention and encouragement. If you paid £20k for treatment then I would expect a lot of attention and encouragement and I would want it to work so it probably would work. Save yourself the money and learn how to be the best possible parent by learning how to encourage and make the most of your child.
If you want to try out different therapies then a good place to start with working out what you can try is
www.researchautism.net/.../our-evaluations-interventions
I note that stem cell therapy is not listed there and I am very sceptical of any claims that could be made about it.
Hello,
We have done stem cell therapy with both our boys. It's been amazing! It really can change the lives of some. You can find us at www.stemcelltherapyforautism.com or on Facebook: Stem Cell Therapy Autism Ethan's Journey.
Regards,
Sarah
The short answer is that stem cell therapy is not likely to do anything for us. I don't think it's impossible but I don't believe anyone is on to anything realistic at the moment. It may eventually come by attacking the GI problems suffered by many ASD sufferers.
Dietary interventions have some real claims to change the affects of the condition for some people. See...
I know stem cells is a very contrivential subject, & theres a lot of negative comments, however does anyone have any positive or success stories to share? I have a 4 year old with asd an I know there's something out there that can help him, if we listen to all the negative comments in life we'd never get anything done
thanks
All this is hype. Here is the paper in question.
www.cellmedicine.com/.../Stem-Cell-Therapy-for-Autism.pdf
See also
Also consider the ethics of partial labotomy (which is what we are discussing here; whether you use a scalpel or stem cells, you are destroying a bit of brain to replace it with a new grown bit you hope youll like better)
