S681 Establishs National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network; New Options for Critically Ill Patients

Scientists, Cord Blood Transplant Recipients Call on Senate to Pass S681 Establishing National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network; Bill Would Create More Options for Critically Ill Patients

WASHINGTON, April 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- New York Blood Center's (NYBC) President and CEO, Robert L. Jones, M.D., its National Cord Blood Program Director, Pablo Rubinstein, M.D., cord blood transplant recipients, will join Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) -- a strong supporter of improving the options of patients who need transplants -- at a Senate Briefing on Monday, April 4 to urge passage of the Cord Blood Stem Cell Act of 2005 (S681).

The briefing will take place noon to 1 p.m. in the Russell Caucus Room (SR-325), Russell Senate Office Building (NW corner of Constitution and First), Washington, DC.

The bill was recently introduced by Senator Hatch and his co- sponsors Senators Sam Brownback (R-Kanas), Christopher Dodd (D- Conn.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), and has also received strong bi-partisan support in the House (HR 596). Passage of the bill would create a National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network reflective of the ethnic diversity of our country, and allow up to 90 percent of patients to receive a well-matched unit.

According to Senator Hatch, "This bill will help establish an inventory of 150,000 ready-to-use, top quality cord blood units available to all patients in need of transplants to recover from lethal diseases."

Every year over 20,000 American children and adults who do not have a matched relative need treatment for a lethal disease that can only be cured with a marrow transplant. Many thousands are unable to be transplanted, in many cases because they cannot find a suitable volunteer donor ready to donate when needed among the several million volunteer donors in marrow registries. They must overcome lethal diseases like leukemia and lymphoma, certain genetic metabolic diseases and inherited diseases of the blood and immune system.

Cord blood stem cells, obtained from the placenta and umbilical cord of just-born babies, have been successfully used to treat such diseases. Cord blood, donated by the mother, is a non-controversial source of stem cells, which-unlike bone marrow- can be collected without risk of any kind to donors and stored frozen, in fully usable conditions, for many years. The great advantage of cord blood transplantation is that it does not require as exacting a tissue type match as donated bone marrow does. Thus, patients with uncommon tissue types, as is the case of many ethnic minority individuals, can find appropriate matches. Obviously, however, recipients of better-matched grafts do better and this is the purpose of this bill: a larger cord blood inventory means better matches and better transplant survival.

"Today marks a new beginning in our unending quest to save lives," said Dr. Jones. "The introduction of this bill calls on legislators to recognize that patients in need of a bone marrow transplant do not have to die waiting for a match. There is another option: cord blood."

Recent reports in the New England Journal of Medicine (Nov. 25, 2004 - Vol.351, No. 22) -- one of which focused on the outcomes of National Cord Blood Program stem cell graft recipients - showed that stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood are an effective transplant option for adult patients with leukemia or myelodysplasia. Cord blood is already a well accepted source of hematopoietic (blood forming) stem cell transplants for children (half of the US children who get a transplant to treat leukemia and certain genetic diseases are now being transplanted with cord blood from unrelated donors).

"We are grateful to Senator Hatch for his leadership on this important bill, and co-sponsors for their unselfish effort to help save lives," said Dr. Rubinstein. "No patient in need should have to go without a transplant. And by passing this bill, our country will take a giant leap in fulfilling that goal."

According to the GAO Report of October 2002, only a small subset of the patients actively seeking transplants each year actually succeed in finding a donor and the statistics are even worse for ethnic minorities, especially African-Americans. In a cruel example, sickle cell disease, a relatively frequent genetic disease curable by transplantation, mostly affects people of African descent who have lower probability of finding matched bone marrow donors.

Providing physical examples of the life-saving power and potential of cord blood transplants will be cord blood recipients Keone Penn, the first patient to be cured of sickle cell disease with a cord blood transplant from an unrelated donor; and Stephen Sprague, one of the first adults treated with cord blood for leukemia, who will tell their stories and discuss the patient perspective of transplants.

The bill would authorize $15 million in federal funds during Fiscal Year 2006 and such sums as needed in FY 2007 to FY 2010. The funds will subsidize the collection, processing, testing, freezing and storing of cord blood units that would then be made available for transplantation treatments.

The National Cord Blood Program (NCBP) of New York Blood Center is a pioneer in the banking of cord blood for use in clinical transplantation. Since the Program's inception in 1992, it has provided cord blood for 1,700 patients of all ages and ethnic backgrounds in the United States and 27 other countries, and received and processed more than 27,000 cord blood donations.

New York Blood Center (NYBC), one of the nation's largest community blood organizations has been providing blood, transfusion products and services to patients in New York and New Jersey hospitals since 1964. The New York Blood Center is also home to the Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute and the National Cord Blood Program, the nation's largest public cord blood bank. New York Blood Center operates a Clinical Services division as well as a Hemophilia Services division in collaboration with the Hemophilia Consortium - providing critical drugs and blood products delivered to the homes of area hemophilia patients. New York Blood Center is not affiliated with the American Red Cross.

For more information, the public can visit the National Cord Blood Program's informational website at http://www.nationalcordbloodprogram.org.

EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: PHOTO(S) AVAILABLE: High resolution, publication-ready photos supporting this story will be available following this event for free editorial use at: http://www.wirepix.com/newsphotos

Title: A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network to prepare, store, and distribute human umbilical cord blood stem cells for the treatment of patients and to support peer-reviewed research using such cells.

Latest Major Action: 3/17/05 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

US Senate expected to establish National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network, with $79 million (19th July)

The US Senate is expected to pass legislation to provide $79 million in funding over the next five years to establish and maintain a National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network, after legislation was passed by Congress in May by a vote of 430 to 1. The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 is strongly supported by the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), which represents 14 of the public cord blood banks. The legislation follows the recommendations of a Congress-commissioned report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) which found that about 11,700 people in the United States could benefit from hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) transplantation each year, but only 1,700 patients currently receive a cord blood stem cell transplant.

Cord blood stem cell transplants have saved the lives of 20,000 Americans suffering from conditions including leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell anemia and other genetic disorders, but inadequate collection of umbilical cord blood means that thousands of patients die every year waiting for a match. The IOM report states that the median time for locating an HLA match is now more than four months, but others say that finding a match may happen almost instantaneously or never because there is no national system of collection. Currently private and public cord blood banks lack uniform standards for collecting and storing blood and are unable to match tissue rapidly enough to treat patients.

The National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network would create a national resource of umbilical cord stem cells, overhauling the current system of uncoordinated public and private banks, accrediting banks, setting standards and providing much greater coordination, resources and quality assurance. There are currently only 50,000 usable units of cord blood in US public banks, and at least 100,000 more high-quality units are necessary. Kristine M. Gebbie, lead author of the IOM report also highlights the importance of a national system of cord blood collection to enable much greater research and understanding of how umbilical cord stem cells can be used to treat patients. Researchers including Joanne Kurtzberg, chief of the division of bone and marrow transplantation at Duke University, note that there will be many new uses for cord blood stem cells developing over the next two decades, in the treatment of neurodegenerative disease and other forms of tissue repair and regeneration and a national bank of umbilical cord stem cells is a vital resource.

The Scientist Volume 19, Issue 14,Page 42, Jul. 18, 2005

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