The first question expecting parents should ask is: How many live stem cells will my child have access to after birth and throughout their life?
When expecting families consider storing their child’s cord blood, many assume all cord blood banks offer similar benefits. Cord blood banking companies were established 30 years ago for families to privately store their baby’s cord blood for a matched sibling’s use in transplant medicine. As the years went by, given the low probability for use and limited number of live cells in cord blood samples, the value of stored cord blood proved to be LOW. This has led to a growing umbilical cord banking controversy regarding the effectiveness of cord blood storage.
However, there is a massive difference between a cord blood banking company and a personal stem cell bank. A personal stem cell bank is for storing your baby’s own (autologous) stem cells for more common uses compared to traditional cord blood banking companies that limit use of the cells to rare diseases with a matched sibling, making it quite unlikely you’ll ever benefit from your stored cells.
The Recently Published New York Times Articles
“Promised Cures, Tainted Cells: How Cord Blood Banks Mislead Parents” and “What Parents Should Know About Cord Blood Banking,” by Sarah Kliff and Azeen Ghorayshi, reveal the numerous limitations of traditional cord blood banks. Talking to more than 60 doctors, parents, executives, former sales representatives, and quality control managers, they concluded that these cord blood and tissue storage facilities have consistently misled customers and doctors regarding: low cell counts, contamination, limited usability, experimental trial rejection, continually paying for cells with uncertain value, new trials only using blood from public banks. This has sparked considerable umbilical cord banking controversy within the industry.
Dr. Robert Brodsky, chief of the hematology department at Johns Hopkins University, notes that cord blood “is not the preferred source of stem cells at virtually every institution in the United States.” Although umbilical cord stem cells are the child’s youngest adult cells at birth, there are often too few cells natively available in the cord to be useful. The cord blood banking controversy highlights this issue, with many families feeling misled.
Dr. Jan Boelens, a pediatric oncologist at Memorial-Sloan Kettering, states that patients sometimes ask if they can be treated with their child’s cord blood the parents have paid for over the years to store. The answer is usually NO. “It’s never enough,” says Boelens. Another oncologist from UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, Dr. Jonathan Gutman, gave a powerful quote. “The potential, actual, legitimate uses of privately banked cord blood units are almost nonexistent.”
According to the article, when customers asked to withdraw their samples for unapproved autism treatments, one cord blood banking company had to tell them that it wasn’t possible. The company releases cells only for transplant use or clinical trials approved by the FDA. Others that tried to withdraw cells for cerebral palsy and autism were told their cells weren’t usable due to contamination or small number of cells. There is a limited number of cells left in the cord blood, and they can’t be replicated or grown. Imagine paying years of storage (potentially tens of thousands of dollars) to be told your stored sample is not even useful?
According to Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, the cord blood pioneer at Duke University, it is not uncommon to be rejected for an FDA-regulated clinical trial due to a contaminated sample or low stem cell count. Out of the 254 patients who were evaluated for treatment this year, more than 50% were rejected because of low-quality cells from private banks. This highlights the ongoing umbilical cord banking controversy regarding the true effectiveness of cord blood banking.
Dr. Sabrina Solt is a leading regenerative medicine doctor and anti-aging expert. She sat down with VitalCells to discuss her thoughts on cord blood banking and why she didn’t bank with her first two children in a cord blood bank.
“I’ve been practicing regenerative medicine since 2013, with a heavy focus on stem cell therapy that began in 2016. In that time, I’ve had the privilege of treating thousands of patients and learning so much about the power of stem cells, both scientifically and clinically. One of the things I learned was just how much was lacking in the cord blood industry – from both a newborn banking and clinical application perspective. At the time of writing this, I am pregnant with my third child and had never previously opted to bank cord blood with either of my two babies, despite my knowledge of how powerful stem cells are. This was because of two main reasons:
No bank could ever tell me exactly how many stem cells we would have access to, and
No bank could guarantee I’d ever actually be able to easily access them.”
Given these limitations, why is cord blood banking still a popular choice? It often boils down to a lack of knowledge. Many families are unaware of the umbilical cord banking controversy and how little usable stem cells are actually stored.
The Second Question Expecting Parents Should Ask Is
Do you grow LIVE stem cells before preserving the umbilical cord or cord blood and provide live stem cell counts?
The NYT article doesn’t address the storage of cord tissue limitations from these storage banks or the importance of live stem cells from the newborn sample. Many cord blood banks store the umbilical cord as a whole segment, not extracting and growing stem cells first, sometimes resulting in a cell that cannot be used. This is a critical issue in the ongoing umbilical cord banking controversy.
These live mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in cord blood and cord tissue are critical for banking autologous (your own) stem cells and have more value in regenerative medicine vs. cord blood samples. They are the child’s youngest adult stem cells and have access to utilize them in conjunction with their medical practitioner. Like cord blood samples, cord tissue has a limited amount of stem cells. The GREAT thing about these cells is they CAN be naturally self-replicated, in a sterile and healthy environment, by a credible stem cell bank. This step is critical for these limited numbers of cells, BEFORE preservation. Otherwise, you won’t know how many live cells you have, if they will replicate, and if they are usable. It’s a risky investment that likely won’t give you any return!
VitalCells was started by American Cell Technology (ACT), the largest autologous (personal) stem cell bank in the United States that stores clients’ own stem cells from their adipose (fat) tissue or bone marrow. They saw the limitations (many of which are mentioned in this article) in traditional cord blood/tissue storage banks, and knew they needed to do better.
They accept and receive samples from newborns’ umbilical cord tissue and blood and isolate the Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) from these tissues in our FDA registered and inspected, cGTP (Current Good Tissue Practice), laboratory in South Florida. Every sample must pass stringent sterility and contamination protocols to ensure the child’s cells are accessible in the future.
Please visit Learn – VitalCells to learn more and have someone reach out to answer your questions.
