Fetal tissue implant

Fetal tissue implant or fetal cell therapy is an experimental medical therapy where researchers implant tissue from a fetus into a person as treatment of a disease. In the case of Parkinson's disease, it is hoped that the fetal tissue would produce chemicals, specifically dopamine, which is lacking in the diseased brain. This therapy is also being investigated for treatment of Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease. Fetal tissue is unique since it is fast growing and has a lower possibility of rejection from the host's immune system than adult cells.

Uses

In 1982, seven people in Santa Clara County, California were diagnosed with Parkinsonism after having used MPPP contaminated with MPTP. In 1992, two of the seven patients were successfully treated at Lund University Hospital in Sweden with neural grafts of fetal tissue. One patient, who had been essentially paralyzed, regained enough motor function to ride a bicycle.[1]

Ethical and political concerns

Because the source of the tissue is aborted fetuses, there are significant legal and ethical issues being discussed. Federal funding for embryonic tissue research was restricted in the United States under Presidents Reagan and Bush before being lifted under the Clinton administration.

gollark: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/629419596428083210/777242606102380574/unknown.png?width=427&height=422
gollark: You'd have to keep decreasing it for every repost though.
gollark: I didn't. Depending on how it gets split into blocks or something it might work.
gollark: Based on something or other it runs on perceptual hashes which use a discrete cosine transform thingy, so it might be easiest to DCT the image data, fiddle with the parameters a bit, and convert it back.
gollark: I should really work on trying to evade meme repost detection again. I think I determined that rotation past about 15 degrees got around it but was very obvious, and adding small amounts of noise didn't.

See also

References
  1. Success reported using fetal tissue to repair a brain, The New York Times, 26 November 1992
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.