Jun
9
Amid the blast walls and cacophony of Baghdad, patients at a local clinic are receiving potentially groundbreaking stem cell therapy, treatments that remain illegal and unproven in many countries.
Dr. Abdul Majeed Alwan Hammadi is conducting the treatments for free, mostly on young Iraqis. He is a clinical hematologist who works in the Bone Marrow Transplant Center, part of Baghdad’s Medical City complex of hospitals on the eastern banks of the Tigris River.
Hammadi says he started therapies in 2008 and has so far treated 34 patients, the majority for multiple sclerosis.
Unlike the more controversial embryonic stem cells, Hammadi’s therapy uses a person’s own adult stem cells, which researchers believe may contain various regenerative and adaptive properties that potentially hold the key to curing a number of diseases.
Hammadi, who graduated from a medical college in Baghdad, claims no side effects have been reported in his patients. He said he is in the process of collecting his data for publication, while also seeking official license for the therapies from Iraq’s Ministry of Health, which funds the center.
One of Hammadi’s patients and proponents of the therapy is the Rev. Andrew White, a British priest who runs St. George Church on Baghdad’s Haifa Street.
White was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998 and said his vision, speech and motor skills were steadily degenerating until he began Hammadi’s therapy in January.
White helped Hammadi establish the bone marrow center in Baghdad in 2001, bringing the doctor and his staff to England for training in marrow transplant techniques.
White said his slurred speech and other MS symptoms improved since starting the three-hour therapy sessions, which involves Hammadi extracting adult stem cells from White’s blood and then injecting them into his spinal cord.
read the rest at Battling MS in Baghdad: Iraqi doctor uses stem cell therapies to help treat patients’ diseases | Stars and Stripes.
via Wheelchair Kamikaze.
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3 Responses to “Battling MS in Baghdad: Iraqi doctor uses stem cell therapies to help treat patients’ diseases”
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There is a group of physicians, patients and other interested people working together to get treatment with adult stem cells legalized in the U.S. as it should be. The organization was formed in response to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent position that the adult stem cells found in everyone’s body are drugs. A person’s cells (autologous) should be their own and NOT regulated by the FDA. That is one of the major reasons why most stem cell clinics are overseas. This stance is ridiculous and is costing millions of lives while sick Americans wait for the use of their own stem cells which would improve their quality of life. The FDA is not protecting us, but hurting us. Please ask your family and friends to sign up (”JOIN”), and get as many doctors to sign up as well. Please see The American Stem Cell Therapy Association (ASCTA) site and the associated Safe Stem Cells Now patient site. If enough people sign up and show a protest to this thing, the FDA will have to back down. They have no right to claim your own tissue is a “drug” to be regulated by them in the first place.
Patient Site: http://www.safestemcells.org
Physician Site: http://www.stemcelldocs.org
good day i am dr hammadi till now we are using cell therapy for 50 MS patients in addieion cerebral palsy and muscular diseases in addition to spinal cord injuries
Hello Dr Hammadi,
I met Andrew White when he came for a visit to Cyprus – we were totally blessed to have him with us for a while. He mentioned his Stem cell treatment – which I was really interested to hear as I’m an intensive care nurse…
I have a friend who is desperate to give it a go, she has a spinal cord injury.
She can’t afford treatment in the USA and isn’t available in the UK at the moment… So – I’m wondering if she could talk to you either via email or the phone.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Kind Regards,
Kerry