In This Issue

Real People...Real Treatments

Repair Stem Cells is the greatest medicine ever laid at the feet of mankind
 
The Repair Stem Cell Institute's mission is to bring this absolute truth to an unbelieving world.  The general public has been intentionally misinformed to the point where over 80% of the citizens of the developed world have never heard of Repair (adult) Stem Cell Treatments.

 

Charlie Knuth---Abandoned at Birth---Now America's most miraculous stem cell child

This is Chapter One of a three-part story.  Chapter Two will be in our next issue April 21

DARBOY WISCONSIN — A year after enduring a stem cell transplant that could ultimately save his life, Charlie Knuth, 5, is focused on one thing — being a little boy.


Charlie Knuth and his mother, Trisha, play in their Darboy home nearly a year after Charlie underwent a stem cell transplant. Charlie has the life-threatening disease epidermolysis bullosa, better known as EB. He was born without the gene that binds skin together. / Wm. Glasheen/The Post-Crescent.

"He plays like a regular kid," said his mother, Trisha Knuth. "Charlie is happy, the family is happy and he's not in pain. That's really what matters right now."

Charlie has the rare skin disease epidermolysis bullosa, commonly known as EB.
Born without the protein that binds skin together, Charlie's body once blistered badly inside and out, a painful condition that typically leads to a lethal form of skin cancer. But that was before the Dec. 30, 2010, bone marrow transplant, which helped Charlie's body produce the missing protein and strengthened his skin.
 
"He's one of the kids that made tremendous progress," said Dr. Jakub Tolar, Charlie's physician at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. "(Charlie) responded very well and he seems to be on the right track. His organs are functioning fine, and now he's going to — I would hope — continue to heal."
 
Abandoned at birth, Charlie came home with the Knuths from a hospital in Milwaukee when he was 2 weeks old. His adoption was finalized a year later.
 
Charlie's remarkable progress has prompted the Knuths to adopt another child who suffers from the same severe form of EB that has shaped Charlie's life. Trisha Knuth will travel to Washington next week to meet 6-year-old Seth.
"(Seth) is in a group home and he has never had a family," Trisha Knuth said. "He's in pretty bad shape."
She said the outpouring of community support her family received during Charlie's journey has prepared the family as they enter a new chapter with Seth.
 
"It's a lot different this time," she said. "Before all this happened, we were kind of alone. Nobody knew what was wrong with (Charlie); nobody knew how to help. And now because of all of the publicity and community support, I really feel like we have such a large support system that it'll be much easier."
 
A family transformed
The lesions that once blanketed Charlie's small frame have largely receded. Just a few patches of fragile skin remain, and those are carefully wrapped with bandages that once entombed most of Charlie’s body.
 
"We try to leave as much skin as we can exposed," Trisha Knuth explained. "It seems like the more we can leave exposed, the tougher it gets."
 
Tolar said that's precisely what Charlie's skin needs to continue healing.
 
"The idea is to not cover the spots that are open wounds because the usual wear and tear of normal daily life is actually good for it," Tolar said. "It informs the cells in the bone marrow to travel to the skin and make more of the collagen type 7 (protein) that he needs. There are several cycles of healing that have to occur to get the best result."
The dramatic changes in Charlie's life aren't merely physical. Both his mother and Tolar expressed amazement at the way his mental and emotional well-being evolved as well.
 
"I can't even remember the last time he cried in the bath (from the pain)," Trisha Knuth said. "From one extreme to this — it's profound, it's amazing."
 
And the change in Charlie's quality of life has rippled to the rest of his family, including his brothers, Alex and Hunter, both 16, and sister, Chloe, 8.
"Let's put it this way — a happy mom is a happy family," Trisha Knuth said, chuckling. "Before (the transplant) all of his pain and all of his anxiety was taken out on me because I was his main caregiver, so things were very stressful around the house. Charlie would deal with pain by acting out with hitting and screaming and calling names. He does not do that anymore, so everybody's just very happy.
 
"My mom and dad have finally been able to baby-sit for Charlie, and that's never happened. So me and (Charlie's father) Kevin were able to go do something on our anniversary for the first time since Charlie was born. That's a big deal."
 
A time to grow
Tolar said it's too early to tell whether the transplant reduced Charlie's risk for developing skin cancer, but he said he's optimistic.
 
"The model is that (EB patients) get skin cancer because of the enormous irritation of the skin," he said. "So if you remove the irritation, you will remove the risk of cancer. But it's going to take a decade or more to actually know if that's the case."
 
Tolar will continue to monitor Charlie's progress and meet with him at least once a year until he turns 18.
 
For now, Tolar said, Charlie needs to focus on staying active and growing up as any little boy would.
 
"He's as bright as anybody else and probably mature beyond his years because of what he went through and he should be given all the opportunity in life as anybody else," Tolar said. "That was the whole goal of the transplant — to give him that."
 
Don Margolis Comment of Dec 2010:  "This story is a lot bigger than just Charlie and it will prove to be so over time, but for now I am very proud of Trisha and the support system the family has built up."  


Stem Cells offer potential treatment for diabetic retinopathy

Researchers at Eugene and Marilyn Glick Eye Institute and the Indiana Center for Vascular Biology at Indiana University School will be working on the $2 million study, which has been funded by the National Eye Institute, and the hope is the new research will stop vision loss and maybe even reverse it.


Old Asian Stem Cell news is now "revolutionary" in the USA

“Tallahassee eye doctor Richard Hamilton says a revolutionary step in science could help people see again.  "One gentleman actually went from being legally blind to being able to get a driver's license,"said Hamilton.  ED NOTE:   A blind 16 year old Colorado girl went to China in 2008 and, within months of her return, had her driver’s license.

This new technology focuses on the eye's cornea. It's the clear layer that protects your eye.  Researchers have now found that stem cells can be used to repair damaged corneas, giving patients a new opportunity to see.

"In the research, they have given people back their sight where they were seeing nothing to actually seeing objects and shapes and lights,"said Dr. Hamilton. They're very happy about that."

Dr. Hamilton says it's even easy on the eyes no surgery, nothing invasive. The stem cells are infused in a contact lense.

"Some cells are take from the good eye grown in a petri dish in a matrix that will look like a contact lense be placed on the patients eye that have been damaged," said Dr. Hamilton.  He says within a couple of weeks the cells reproduce, regrow, then heal the eye. He says research is happening in the United Kingdom.

"I think it's absolutely fantastic, definitely on the cutting edge of genetics and research is able to do, still has a way to make it to the masses but it's definitely on the way," said Hamilton.  Some advancements he says are coming to fruition in the U.S., contact lenses loaded with drugs to treat allergies, conjunctivitus or possibly glaucoma.

ED NOTE: Note that this “never-tested in a clinical trial drug product” zipped right through the Pharma-run FDA.  Meanwhile, the USA now has to spend 18% of Domestic income on medicine, while the vast majority of other developed countries are averaging 10%!!


Diabetic wounds treated with Stem Cells

Pre-clinical research has generated some very promising findings using adult stem cells for the treatment of diabetic wounds. The research carried out by scientists at the National University of Ireland Galway, is published in Diabetes, the official journal of the American Diabetes Association.

The work showed that a particular type of stem cell, known as the mesenchymal stem cell (MSC), could increase wound healing when applied together with a biomaterial made from collagen. Diabetic patients have an impaired ability to heal wounds and there is a critical need to develop new treatments to improve healing particularly in patients with foot ulcers. In fact, foot ulceration will affect up to 25% of people suffering from diabetes during their lives and may result in amputation.

 

Repair Stem Cells regrow Georgia man's foot decimated by flesh-eating bacteria

Once they stripped away the infected flesh, the next step was to cut off the remaining foot bone. But Osiris (USA's leading Repair Stem Cell company) donated its products to see if it could fix the largest problem ever proposed for stem cells anywhere!
 
Dalton, Georgia May 2012:  By the time Dr. Spencer Misner had carved away the dead and diseased flesh from Bobby Rice’s right foot last year, little remained other than bones and tendons.
 
“I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t look real. It looked like something out of a movie,” recalled Rice.
 
Today, the ankle has almost completely healed. It looks like Rice had simply scraped it. And Rice’s foot has largely healed, too. Misner credits cutting-edge stem cell treatments for saving Rice’s foot and leg.
 
Rice, who has diabetes, stepped on a piece of glass last fall and his foot quickly became infected. After trying a home remedy, Rice eventually went to Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton, GA, where doctors found he had a rapidly spreading necrotizing fasciitis, or in layman’s terms, flesh-eating bacteria.
 
Physicians treated the infection with antibiotics. However, Rice had one toe amputated. Doctors had to strip away much of the flesh from Rice’s foot and a great deal of flesh along his ankle.
 
“We did what we had to do,” Misner said. “We got the infection out. We saved his life. But what do you do next? We’d normally say all you can do now is cut of his leg so he can get on with his life.”
 
But Misner had another idea. He contacted Ed Fickey, a sales representative for Osiris Therapeutics and asked about using the company’s new stem cell technologies to rebuild the foot and ankle.
 
Stem cells can grow and differentiate into many different types of cells. Stem cell treatments introduce these cells into damaged or diseased organs to repair them.
 
“The problem is that Bobby is an indigent patient and didn’t have the financial resources. Ed spoke to the company, and they agreed to donate the products for free,” Misner said.
 
Osiris provided two products called Grafix and Ovation. Fickey said they are made from adult stem cells derived from donated placenta and do not come from embryos.
 
“They hadn’t had a case of this magnitude before,” Misner said. “Stem cells are starting to be used pretty extensively. They are used on burn patients to regenerate skin. But this involves muscle, bone, tendon, fat, skin, so many types of tissues.”
 
Misner said he asked the company for some guidelines.
 
“They basically said, ‘You let is know what the guidelines are because we don’t have a record of anything like this being done before.’ I did a literature search, and I couldn’t find anything like this before,” Misner said. “They did connect me with a doctor in Washington, D.C. who has used stem cells quite a bit. But when I sent him the pictures (of Rice’s foot and ankle), he basically said ‘Good luck.” He helped me with some general guidelines, but there was no recipe to follow.”
 
Misner started the treatments in November 2011, and Fickey recalls just how tricky it was.
 
“He (Misner) had a syringe, and he was looking for some tissue to push it into. But there was nothing but bone there,” he said. “Now, there’s a whole fleshy foot.”
 
Misner has applied the stem cell treatments nine times now, and he describes the foot as more than 90 percent healed. He had to perform the first treatments in an operating room at Hamilton Medical Center because of how complicated they were. But he has been able to do the last few treatments in his office. He expects to have to do at least three more before the foot has completely regenerated.
 
Fickey said Osiris has been watching “the Dalton foot” very closely.
 
“Each time we do an application, I send the latest pictures back, and they have always been very impressed. They wanted to see if there has been muscle growth and the answer has been yes. They wanted to see if there has been vascularization, blood flow, and there has been,” Fickey said. “The most impressive thing is that Bobby has feeling back. We were here a couple of weeks ago and the nurse tickled his foot and he kind of jumped. We didn’t expect that. Now, we are starting to have some other cases around and we can tell them ‘This is what we want to see.’”
 
Rice said he never dreamed he would regain his foot.
 
“I know what it looked like. I expected he would just have to take it off. To see where it is today is just amazing,” he said.
European Society of Cardiology: "Stem Cells Heal Hearts!"
 
Largest long-term stem cell study in cardiology history shows huge increase in quality of life for stem cell patients vs. serious deterioration for standard cardiology patients.
 
Heart patients, limited to only standard cardiology, die at five times the rate of stem cell patients.
 
 Injecting autologous (the patient’s own) stem cells directly into the hearts of patients with chronic heart failure improves ventricular performance, quality of life, and survival, according to the only large (391 patients), long term (5 years), stem cell clinical trial in medical history.



Stage Four pancreatic cancer patient, given three months to live, enters month five: "Stronger than ever!"
 
She forgot to die on Feb 23, which was the three months her honest oncologist in Denver gave her. He did not try to make a few extra bucks with more chemo and radiation on her oversized (7cm) inoperable pancreatic tumor plus the cancer bubbles on her liver.
 
When Dick & Jenny came to RSCI with the facts, just before Thanksgiving, we got into rocket-mode to get the doctor-friend who ran what we think may be the best cancer program anywhere, to approve her case. They told us her chances were about 50% at best, pending her arrival cat scan, which was a heck of a lot better than the 0% she had in America.



Stay Out of Hospitals---
            Or Suffer the Consequences
 
Every two seconds of every day---365 a year---a harmful or LETHAL error occurs in a USA hospital!

Medical errors, technically known as “Iatrogenic,” is THE leading cause of death in the United States, and what’s even more shocking is that the harm often is preventable.

Hospitals often make egregious errors ranging from minor mistakes to treating the wrong patient, leaving behind surgical tools in a person after surgery, or operating on the wrong body part.

According to the 2011 Health Grades report,1 the incidence rate of medical harm occurring in the United States is estimated to be over 40,000 harmful and/or lethal errors DAILY!