I stayed up too late last night reading some more of "Cell of Cells" by Cynthia Fox. What I read had fire blazing out of me like a dragon. For those of you that do not understand the double standard being dealt to doctors that want to give adult stem cell therapy vs. fertility clinics giving treatment, this excerpt should make it clear to you. ASCTA doctors have the same industry relevant guidelines they have written as to how they would be allowed to manipulate our stem cells so as to make them clinically relevant. The FDA has declared out of thin air that our stem cells are drugs because of this manipulation and is saying that doctors must take a long and expensive road of clinical trials and paperwork before they can legalize this type of treatment in the U.S. This effectively sentences many people to death who might benefit from such therapy, but do not have years to wait for it or are too ill to travel out of the country where it is readily available. I think you will be as upset as I was to read this. Another reason to keep up the fight everyone. Help spread the word about ASCTA. www.safestemcells.org Here goes:
"The prospect of maternal bliss, for millions of young/old women aged 35-43, comes to the door in a FedEx box the size of a riot-gear shield.
This is appropriate, for this box of bliss contains weapons. In addition to large stores of needles, the box offers instruments of chemical warfare, powerful drugs which, when unloaded into the woman's body, will fight not only her dying reproductive system but also her comparatively young endocrine, cardiovascular, and nervous systems, forcing them to rally around and get behind an activity that will be shocking to them all. For the job of those FedExed weapons is to provoke the woman's body into developing and briefly stockpiling scores of old eggs simultaneously in her ovaries - instead of the usual one a month - in the hope that bombarding sperm with a blitzkrieg of rapidly aging eggs will increase the odds of a successful bull's eye, and birth. THE LONG-TERM EFFECT OF THIS ON THE WOMAN IS UNKNOWN. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is still a very modern form of modern warfare.
Each weapon in this battle for bliss is, furthermore, expensive, and each has been fought over with insurers if the woman is lucky enough to live in one of the few states that mandate at least partial IVF coverage.
Once the drop has been made, therefore, the IVF warrior must check her arms shipment to make sure it includes something along the lines of the following (it varies): 30 3cc/ml syringes with 1-inch-long needles and 20 half-inch needles to be plunged a couple of times daily, over the course of one to several weeks, into the buttocks, thighs, stomach. Five smaller needles already locked and loaded with Antagon. Five vials of Menotropin, and five vials of sodium chloride, for later loading into syringes. A plastic box with the words "biohazard" and "contaminated" spelled out on it in ghostly raised plastic lettering. Two large vials of injectable Novarel (HCG). Alcohol pads and gauzes. Four 16 mg tablets of Medrol. Six 100 mg tables of Doxycycline. Fourteen caplets of 200 mg progesterone. Four syringes with
1 1/2 inch needles. Vials of injectable Gonal-f, 1200 IU multidose. Fifteen more 27-guage syringes and one prefilled syringe of bacteriostactic diluent.
Every drug here has an equivalent; every clinic, its preferences; every insurance company, different preferences. Many recipients of this box have thus battled for each drug, drug by drug. And many do fight. One mistake could be an error they can't afford.
For this is a $5,000 to $10,000 weapons cache, (it is probably more now since this was a few years back), depending on which part of the nation IVF warrior purchases it in. It will service a single attempt to have a child, a single menstrual cycle.
The fact that this box is the size of a riot-gear shield is appropriate for another reason. Many women receiving it are at the end of another series of battles. For U.S. IVF, unlike IVF in much of the rest of the Western world, is also largely federally unregulated, due in very large part to the Christian Right. Thus, clinics are free to service who they want to service and they tend to prefer women who are guaranteed successes - younger women who possess a simple fallopian tube problem, for example - since the main way they score clients is via published success rates.
The battle doesn't end there. Those IVF warriors possessing the predisposing mutated BRCA-1 or-2 cancer genes may want to avoid standard IVF, some experts believe. At Cornell University's top IVF clinic, a few patients with a mutated BRCA gene developed breast cancer after standard IVF treatment. Thus, IVF warriors with breast or ovarian cancer in the family can end up fighting insurers yet again; this time, for $3,000 genetic tests. These must be preapproved for healthy women. The warrior can face yet another decision: gamble with her life, or spend a few thousand more and wait another few months for results. "
The chapter continues on with stats that show a dismally low success rate as age of the warrior goes up. It also states that there have been no significant advances in the field of women's fertility in 20 years. This is where stem cells come in. Can they be used to change the future where women do not have to worry about their biological clock?
After reading this much, I was dumbfounded to say the least that the FDA has now decided to apply a double standard to those who want to have their own stem cells administered by a competent U.S. doctor who will agree to follow guidelines set out by his or her industry. Maybe, mail order is the way to go for us too. This is positively outrageous if you ask me. If you feel the same, feel free to copy this article giving credit where it is due to Ms. Fox and send it along to the FDA and your representatives asking why the double standard. I also get so many that criticize the cost of stem cell treatments and say that the outcome is unknown and therefore too expensive. I don't understand these comments because no one is forcing anyone to have treatment, but nevertheless, IVF treatment sounds mighty expensive to me for a possibly negative outcome. Big Pharma is probably okay with these treatments as it sounds like a lot of drugs are administered.
"The prospect of maternal bliss, for millions of young/old women aged 35-43, comes to the door in a FedEx box the size of a riot-gear shield.
This is appropriate, for this box of bliss contains weapons. In addition to large stores of needles, the box offers instruments of chemical warfare, powerful drugs which, when unloaded into the woman's body, will fight not only her dying reproductive system but also her comparatively young endocrine, cardiovascular, and nervous systems, forcing them to rally around and get behind an activity that will be shocking to them all. For the job of those FedExed weapons is to provoke the woman's body into developing and briefly stockpiling scores of old eggs simultaneously in her ovaries - instead of the usual one a month - in the hope that bombarding sperm with a blitzkrieg of rapidly aging eggs will increase the odds of a successful bull's eye, and birth. THE LONG-TERM EFFECT OF THIS ON THE WOMAN IS UNKNOWN. In vitro fertilization (IVF) is still a very modern form of modern warfare.
Each weapon in this battle for bliss is, furthermore, expensive, and each has been fought over with insurers if the woman is lucky enough to live in one of the few states that mandate at least partial IVF coverage.
Once the drop has been made, therefore, the IVF warrior must check her arms shipment to make sure it includes something along the lines of the following (it varies): 30 3cc/ml syringes with 1-inch-long needles and 20 half-inch needles to be plunged a couple of times daily, over the course of one to several weeks, into the buttocks, thighs, stomach. Five smaller needles already locked and loaded with Antagon. Five vials of Menotropin, and five vials of sodium chloride, for later loading into syringes. A plastic box with the words "biohazard" and "contaminated" spelled out on it in ghostly raised plastic lettering. Two large vials of injectable Novarel (HCG). Alcohol pads and gauzes. Four 16 mg tablets of Medrol. Six 100 mg tables of Doxycycline. Fourteen caplets of 200 mg progesterone. Four syringes with
1 1/2 inch needles. Vials of injectable Gonal-f, 1200 IU multidose. Fifteen more 27-guage syringes and one prefilled syringe of bacteriostactic diluent.
Every drug here has an equivalent; every clinic, its preferences; every insurance company, different preferences. Many recipients of this box have thus battled for each drug, drug by drug. And many do fight. One mistake could be an error they can't afford.
For this is a $5,000 to $10,000 weapons cache, (it is probably more now since this was a few years back), depending on which part of the nation IVF warrior purchases it in. It will service a single attempt to have a child, a single menstrual cycle.
The fact that this box is the size of a riot-gear shield is appropriate for another reason. Many women receiving it are at the end of another series of battles. For U.S. IVF, unlike IVF in much of the rest of the Western world, is also largely federally unregulated, due in very large part to the Christian Right. Thus, clinics are free to service who they want to service and they tend to prefer women who are guaranteed successes - younger women who possess a simple fallopian tube problem, for example - since the main way they score clients is via published success rates.
The battle doesn't end there. Those IVF warriors possessing the predisposing mutated BRCA-1 or-2 cancer genes may want to avoid standard IVF, some experts believe. At Cornell University's top IVF clinic, a few patients with a mutated BRCA gene developed breast cancer after standard IVF treatment. Thus, IVF warriors with breast or ovarian cancer in the family can end up fighting insurers yet again; this time, for $3,000 genetic tests. These must be preapproved for healthy women. The warrior can face yet another decision: gamble with her life, or spend a few thousand more and wait another few months for results. "
The chapter continues on with stats that show a dismally low success rate as age of the warrior goes up. It also states that there have been no significant advances in the field of women's fertility in 20 years. This is where stem cells come in. Can they be used to change the future where women do not have to worry about their biological clock?
After reading this much, I was dumbfounded to say the least that the FDA has now decided to apply a double standard to those who want to have their own stem cells administered by a competent U.S. doctor who will agree to follow guidelines set out by his or her industry. Maybe, mail order is the way to go for us too. This is positively outrageous if you ask me. If you feel the same, feel free to copy this article giving credit where it is due to Ms. Fox and send it along to the FDA and your representatives asking why the double standard. I also get so many that criticize the cost of stem cell treatments and say that the outcome is unknown and therefore too expensive. I don't understand these comments because no one is forcing anyone to have treatment, but nevertheless, IVF treatment sounds mighty expensive to me for a possibly negative outcome. Big Pharma is probably okay with these treatments as it sounds like a lot of drugs are administered.
Last edited: