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October 29, 2010Special Edition |
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In This Issue· India Soars Ahead of North America and Europe
· Reflections from a Renewing Heart (Part 2 of 2… long)
Don Margolis
Bangkok, Thailand |
INDIA SOARS AHEAD OF NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE, FAR AHEAD, IN STEM CELL RESEARCH
While press release stem cell medicine is all that is available in the developed world ---fully controlled by Pharma---India is actually treating people. Our bribed politicians and corrupt scientists tell us to wait for embryonic stem cells, which they know will never be available during the lifetimes of today’s patients. Meanwhile, the world’s two largest countries, China and India, just keep improving patients’ lives, a concept that has been COMPLETELY lost in the West.
BANGALORE: While stem cells have been making news around the world for their potential, and are even being tried on patients, Dr N K Venkataramana, neurosurgeon, BGS Global Hospital in Bangalore, has successfully used the therapy on patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, cerebral degeneration and cerebral palsy. |
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"I used adult mesenchymal stem cells derived from the bone marrow. They were transplanted into the brain through keyhole surgery. These stem cells multiply and thereby regenerate the damaged areas of the brain. This leads to reactivation of brain cells, resulting in recovery from the disease," Dr Venkataramana explains.
It is for the first time that stem cells have been used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease in India, and has been published in a peer reviewed journal for the first time ever.
HALT TO DEGENERATION
Such degenerative diseases of the brain have no cure so far, and are progressive. They ultimately lead to disability of the patients. "I have used this therapy on over 40 patients so far and in all of them, progression of the disease has ceased. This is the first benefit. Now, the process of their returning to normal will begin. In about six months to one year, I expect them to be near normal."
In all these cases, the brain cells die prematurely, leading to loss of neural network and secretion of neuro transmitters. These are needed for the different actions and controls of the body. With the cells dying, these actions are inhibited, leading to permanent disability.
"I was moved by the plight of my patients and their families. I had to tell them there was no hope of a cure and all that we had was symptomatic treatment. I was taught in medical school that the brain could never be regenerated. Now, this has been proved wrong by medical science," says Dr Venkataramana.
COMPLETE CURE? NOT QUITE YET……
Thus began his quest to find a cure by regenerating brain cells. He created a state-of-the-art research facility -- Advanced Neuro Science Allies -- and began his research into the use of stem cell therapy three years ago. "I picked out authentic mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow using a marker. The stem cells were purified and tried on animals for safety. Subsequently, we used the therapy on patients," he says.
The results have been more than encouraging. "Initially, the findings are that we are on the course to a complete cure. All the patients treated so far have a marked decrease in the need for medication. Their symptoms have reduced drastically. They have an increased feeling of well-being and it is obvious that they are recovering. However, there are still some factors to be addressed and understood."
Does this mean a change in the way Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, cerebral palsy and other brain degenerations will be treated in future? "Definitely. Conventionally, such intervention is recommended at the dead end of the disease's progression, when the maximum damage has happened. Ideally, this therapy should be provided at the earliest as recovery is quicker and better from the beginning, and chances of the patient becoming normal are more," Dr Venkataramana says.
The most encouraging results have been with children suffering from cerebral palsy. "They have shown significant recovery in their cognitive and physical abilities," he says. This promises to be the beginning of a new era in neuro sciences.
Read more: Stem cells revive dying brains - The Times of India
FROM DON MARGOLIS: Throughout the infancy of Repair Stem Cell therapy, we have tried to repair brain damage by injecting the cells into the spinal canal, hoping they will make it to the inflamed/deprived brain cells and repair them. But the older the patient, the worse the blood-brain barrier is, resulting in poor (less than 50%) results for older folks. We now have two centers who have proven that stem cells into the brain are the answer for advanced MS and Parkinson’s. Let us know if you wish more info.
Letter to RSCITo RSCI: Why do you still insist that drug companies which save our lives consider us all lab rats? Hundreds of modern medicines cure many many diseases.---Mrs XXX
To Mrs. XXX: First I will respond to second statement: There is no chronic disease, NONE, which can be cured with drugs. There is only the illusion your doctors give you. The rule in western medicine is NO CURES ALLOWED. Let us know when your doctor names one chronic disease he can cure. One.
You question regarding Lab Rats? Here are some CURRENT news items. Hope you still feel good about your Pharma heroes after reading these. RSCI
From Don Margolis: As you read about these intentional destroyers of your health, notice that they all KNOW they are killing you by lying. Please keep in mind that they use their outright ownership of “your” govt to keep Repair Stem Cells from improving your quality of life, and in some cases, from saving your life.
Glaxo to pay $750 million in adulterated drugs case GlaxoSmithKline Plc has agreed to pay $750 million and plead guilty to manufacturing and distributing adulterated drugs from a now closed plant in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday. The company had said in July it reached an agreement in principle relating to quality problems at its SB Pharmo Puerto Rico Inc's plant and would pay about $750 million to resolve the allegations. Of the $750 million, Glaxo will pay $600 million to settle allegations that, because the drugs were adulterated, false claims for reimbursement were submitted to government healthcare programs. The drugs -- the anti-nausea medicine Kytril, skin ointment Bactroban, anti-depressant Paxil CR and diabetes drug Avandamet -- were made at the plant between 2001 and 2005. The company was accused of failing to ensure the drugs were properly manufactured at the plant and thus effective, according to the Justice Department. Under the plea agreement, SB Pharmco Puerto Rico will plead guilty to a felony of releasing adulterated medicines and pay a $150 million criminal fine that includes forfeiture of $10 million in assets. Asked during a news conference if the actions by the company were intentional, Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said that was the government's contention. "They received warning letters from the FDA and yet they went ignored," she told reporters. Ortiz also said the investigation into individuals was "ongoing."
SCORECARD: GLAXO: minus $750 million; (2 weeks profits) GOVERNMENT: plus $750 million LAB RATS: many sickened, some undetermined deaths, $000 cash
Bristol Meyers Squibb nailed again Deficiencies at a separate drug plant in Puerto Rico led the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday (Oct 26) to withhold approval of a new drug for Bristol-Myers Squibb. The FDA said an inspection found possible contamination and detected glass particles in drug vials at the plant in Manati. Those problems must be resolved, the FDA said, before approval is granted for sales of belatacept, intended to prevent rejection of transplanted organs.
Pfizer to Pay $2.3 Billion for Fraudulent Marketing
WASHINGTON – American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and its subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc. (hereinafter together "Pfizer") have agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products, the Justice Department announced in September. http://www.greenpharmacy.com/?q=node/2720
Finally, Dear Lab Rats
Big Pharma, the super-powerful owners of the US Govt, have threatened Google to stop guaranteeing the quality of low-priced internet drugs. That way, only Pharma itself can buy the drugs FROM THE SAME MANUFACTURERS and keep your prices up. Read for yourself:
Reflections from a Renewing HeartorAfter Years and Years of Bad Medicine…..Part 2 of 2If you missed part one, click here…
I thought I could always find a better doctor if he no longer suited my evolving needs and I believe that we both knew we were saying goodbye for the last time in our 12-year history. I’d decided, disappointedly, that had my specialists been real experts, they would have indulged me in my research and encouraged and supported me in my quest for a healthier and longer life. They could have at least humored me with informed objections. Instead, they both seemed to have brushed aside their allegiance to the Hippocratic Oath, traditionally taken by physicians pertaining to the ethical practice of medicine, and could not or would not go the distance. Before I had consulted with the specialists for their opinion and possible support following ASC treatment, I came with the hope (perhaps foolishly) that they would comply with the Oath, at least since my life had depended on it, at the time. I didn’t mention the Oath to them, but I saved it in the back of my mind as a barometer of my trust for them. As a human being basically depending on others for my life, trust had taken on a whole new meaning. I thought, therefore, that should they not comply with their own professional undertaking of the Oath, then I’d have no trust left in them.
My hand would then be forced to try the next option by having absolutely nothing to lose and precious life to gain. I felt consoled by Hippocrates’ intentions for medical practitioners and patients, alike. He is the father of medicine and he, or one of his students, is widely believed to have written the Oath in the 4th Century B.C.E. I have included below only relevant parts of the Oath as applicable to me: I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
But the Oath, despite its ultimate clarity, did not appear to have impressed upon these specialists, that patients come first, and, as an idealist with options, that’s when I convinced myself that they’d left me alone to deal with my life, or death, as it were. The basic desire to live had now driven me to try an alternative treatment that would give me peace, both physically and mentally, and also hope. Neither specialist was interested in researching Vescell with me; they simply denied its possibility and viability without so much as asking me for my knowledge, impressions, or expectations of the revolutionary treatment method. I wasn’t looking for a cure, I was only looking for what Vescell could promise 70% of its patients; that is, improvement alone. I didn’t want to judge either of them for their actions, but I knew that they’d judged me for mine. They seemed to know very little about the development of ASC therapy and certainly weren’t going to defer to a patient to learn about its latest developments. I mean, what would the patient know, right? Even if the patient’s life had depended on it?! They were the experts, not me. Or were they?
I remember saying to the other, seemingly more open-minded specialist, that there were two certain differences between the two of us. One was that he was the heart specialist and that I wasn’t. And the other difference, I said, was that I seemed to know a lot more about ASC therapy than he did. So I proposed that if he were to remain involved in my health care, then I’d appreciate it if he would agree to get up to speed with ASC developments; particularly Vescell’s. He agreed, so I sent him much of the literature I’d received from Don, but didn’t hear back from him until seven weeks later. The specialist had left me a voice message to call him back, but at that point, instead of calling him back, I made arrangements to leave for Thailand for the Vescell treatment.
While the doctors were busy following their protocols, I was busy building a rapport with and confidence in Don and his team at Theravitae. I left two messages for my specialist to return my call as I was nearing my decision to make the move toward ASC treatment, but he called too late. I had gone along with conventional medical guidance and the laissez faire attitude demonstrated by both doctors until I decided that enough was enough.
But I will never understand how specialists caring for human beings, especially at this end of the life spectrum, could be so detached from the patient’s hope for a better life. Empathy must be at a premium for specialists, if they are to live authentically both in terms of their Hippocractic Oath and their lives. It is, after all, a particularly emotional life for the sector of humanity they serve, patients, and anything less than adherence to that is morally reprehensible. I felt alone and disconsolate and I thought that if I were to have any hope of getting out of my health quandary, I’d have to put my life into the hands of virtual strangers from overseas. But then, I thought, my specialists were strangers too until I‘d developed faith in what they could do for me. It must be said that I had great faith in them for as long as they were able to help, and I remain eternally grateful for their efforts. But, as they say in soccer, the player is only as good as his last goal. As far as I was concerned, my specialists couldn’t kick goals in the cutting-edge field of ASC.
I figured that for as long as I had the facility and resources to read, talk, and learn about treatment methods, then I had the possibility of hope for a better life. As my confidence in Don grew, I agreed to collect my health records from the specialists’ offices, which, thankfully, was troubled only by my impatience for receipt of the potentially ‘life-changing’ documents. I quickly forwarded the records to Theravitae, which promptly forwarded them to the nominated Bangkok Heart Hospital for screening purposes and the ASC procedure. My liaison with Don’s team had become a smooth flowing transition from no hope to some hope, without much trepidation or fear.
There was a bit of a nervous wait for the screening results, but I was confident that my health was paradoxically, though bad, still good enough for me to be accepted for treatment. Then, within only seven days I received the great news that I was a good candidate for it and that I had been accepted! I was excited by the prospects of a life-changing trip to one of the best heart hospitals in the world and it had to for my loved ones to be mollified. My family and friends were excited for me, but whereas I was focused on results, they perhaps understandably, seemed focused on the risks. I was mainly concerned with the alleviation of my symptoms, while others were distracted by associated factors, such as whether a developing country could really deliver on such promises. The political reasons for the geographical location of a world ground-breaking treatment process took some explaining; however, we all understood that no matter how convinced I may have been that Thailand would deliver, the proof was going to be in the pudding. As it happened, any concerns anyone (most particularly, my parents) may have had about the hospital’s facilities were quickly allayed once I arrived there alone and reported back to them.
In spite of my knowledge of the hospital’s credentials, once I arrived there in mid-April of this year, I was stunned to find an amazingly modern hospital with constantly attentive, pleasant, and courteous staff members. I finally got to meet Don at the hospital and took an instant liking to him. He struck me as warm and humble in spite of his remarkable accomplishments, particularly in the ASC field. He made me feel welcome and he gave me a sense of belonging and security in my new and uncertain surroundings. The place felt nice. The hospital’s décor and amenities resembled those of a five star hotel, but so too did the staff members’ attitudes. You wouldn’t think they were dealing with end-stage heart patients judging by their smiling faces, but I guessed that that’s the kind of pleasantry most end-stage patients appreciated. It’s ironic, really, that our hospital staff members’ back home tend to greet our morbidity with a morbid attitude, which runs counter to health promotion, I should think. Just arriving at the Bangkok hospital had made me feel better, so I was sure that my upbeat mood would play some role in improving my chances of optimal improvement after the long-awaited procedure.
I’ll spare you the procedure details other than to say that I had my blood drawn at the hospital and then sent to Theravitae’s Israel laboratory for Vescell engineering, before returning to the hospital. There I had three intra-coronary injections of my own angiogenic cell precursors (ACPs), which are stem cells whose normal function is to repair damaged blood vessels. When injected into the heart, these cells build new blood vessels and restore function to the damaged heart tissue. I was awake and comfortable throughout the hour-long series of injections. I was aided by the fact that I’d enjoyed my preliminary consultations with the specialist who performed the operation. He advised me that the procedure had gone very well, so my hopes were immediately lifted. I stayed overnight and was discharged the next day. I had a wonderful two weeks in Bangkok because it’s a beautiful place and now, it also holds a whole new meaning of ‘renewal’ for me. Before I left for home three days after the procedure, I booked an appointment to return in October for my 6-month check-up. I said good bye to Don and his local staff members and headed home with a buoyant sense of hope for a brighter future.
I returned home to a more than expectant audience of family members and friends. Some were quite vocal about their hopes and others were quite restrained. Perhaps the latter were concerned that all the fuss had been for nothing, or perhaps they were grappling with their own mortality. I had to assure them all that I was feeling ok and that the worst thing that could happen would be for the treatment not to work, but even then, at least I’d have cared enough for all our sakes to have tried. I really did feel that I’d be ok if it didn’t work, because I’ve learned that sometimes self-respect and integrity are more important than life itself. I just didn’t want to live to die poorly, while agonizingly wondering whether there had been something better than a conventional medical world to help me.
My family and friends knew how my physical limitations had affected me before I left for Thailand. Quietly, I now hear, some marveled at my ability to return to work to counsel 16 clients per week, while also lecturing to 200 students in a 25-hour work week, all while feeling fatigued, breathless, coughing, and looking pale and tired. Others may not have been too aware of my deepest limitations, as for much of the time my pride and ego succeeded in concealing them, or so I thought.
I waited for the slightest change to my beating heart. I wondered, would I breathe easier? Gain some energy? Stop coughing? Look brighter? Have more vitality? Would my arrhythmia problem cease? Would the stem cells be smart enough to fix that bit of my heart that tended to cause the VF’s from time to time? I remember bargaining with myself for “all of the above please, but if not, at least the energy boost and then the maybe lessen the breathlessness?” I made useless attempts to temper the voice in my head that kept asking for ‘the miracle’. I knew that if I promised myself the minimum in terms of positive effects now, my heart would deliver the maximum on them later. But I just didn’t know how to do this because all patients are unique. How could I possibly know what, when, and how I would improve, if at all? So I tried to distract myself from my deeply held wishes. I just had to remain patient, which was trying, even for a man who had had to learn to wait seven years for his degree and the chance to restore a healthy financial status after having lived so far below that for so long.
Nothing changed in my first month after I came back from Thailand. I remained busy by plugging away at work and enjoying pleasant pastimes, like light socializing, reading, and watching movies. I also went for daily walks and began the important process of forming a new medical team to help me with my heart and the ASC therapy aftercare. While I was positive about my prospects, I managed to control my expectations by reminding myself that I would always do the best I could, come what may in life. Then, it happened.
On May 28th, exactly one month from the date of my ASC injection, I remember leaving the house that morning and, heading for the train station. It suddenly dawned on me that for the first time in maybe 15 years, I hadn’t propped myself on the bed for 10 minutes to meditate in the morning which was the ritual I had developed to get me through the day. Because my limbs always felt like lead, I’d developed the mindset that I always had to get home after work or anything else as soon as possible to sit and rest, to recuperate. I had always needed to find the patience and even the proper mood to get through the day’s work, whether I was studying at the time or working, and to tolerate the things that would delay or prevent my need to switch off from the noisy world around me.
Computer troubles, hanging up the clothes, extra cleaning chores, forgetting to buy necessary groceries all meant that I had more physical work to do and less time to rest. I had become irritable and frustrated with such obstacles, but I managed to contain my emotions with constant focus. While my concentration had helped me to manage my negative feelings, the energy required was immense and very tiring at times. The very nature of managing an ongoing debilitating physical condition with the mind can be draining, and this is something our biomedical world can’t appreciate. It’s my spirit and pride that drive me to work and maintain the desire to live, even as I am. Living with heart disease is hard work and always has been for me, but even though I’ve been tired of the incessant physical drain, I want to keep trying and I know that any help in that area is miraculous.
What was different about that morning, a month after my ASC treatment, was that I hadn’t sat down to meditate that morning because I hadn’t needed to. In the testimonials I’d read earlier in the year, it said a patient can experience symptom relief as early as a month from the day of his/her procedure. And now, exactly one month after my procedure, it had happened to me! You wouldn’t believe how the change just happened, and as if by magic, I was without fatigue for the first time in maybe 15 years. Not to mention, the palpitations had all but ceased at the same time, while the associated cough had disappeared, and some blood had come rushing back to my face. My breathlessness also seemed to have all but disappeared.
With eternal gratitude, since then, my health improvements have been sustained for four months, during which time no symptomatic relapses have occurred, except for some barely noticeable breathlessness. My heart continues to beat more rhythmically and consistently and my mental and physical confidence continues to grow. My heart used to feel edgy and would flip-flop around much of the time, and more so when it was aggravated by poor sleep, a sip of any alcohol, chili, stress, and a full stomach, to provide some prime examples. Now, my heart tolerates such stressors better as it basically pumps more solidly.
And now, I don’t need to meditate to get myself going for the day because I no longer need to get the day out of the way to rush home to rest. In fact, these days I’m looking for things to do after work, and sometimes I extend my day beyond the normal rush-to-go-home ‘curfew” to recover and rest, and I will occasionally surprise family and friends with a visit. My mindset and mood has improved; I clean willingly and for longer periods of time, and chores and things that go wrong don’t matter to me anymore. I’m able to tolerate them more easily now, because I have increased energy and a much improved breathing capacity. I’ve also noticed, as have others, that I’m looking brighter all the time and that I have more vitality. They can also tell that I don’t need to stop and take a breath while I’m talking, and that’s one of the aspects of my disease I could’ve sworn I’d hidden well. Although, I suspect that on worse days others noticed that wasn’t the case. On those days, I was so breathless during conversations that I was close to passing out. Hopefully, I’ll never experience those days ever again and, thankfully, so far, so good.
Suffice it to say that overall, I’m much happier that I’m feeling better now, but I’m even happier that I’ll be better in the future with less constraints on the way I choose to live my life. I can’t begin to tell you how blessed we are that ASC treatment is already here. I wanted to write an up close and personal account of my struggles and triumphs, to add my story to the many whose health and lives have turned around thanks to Vescell, and to show my gratitude for my incredible results.
To those afflicted with heart disease, I implore that once you’ve assessed your health needs, you seek the assistance necessary to bring you closer to the healthier reality so many of us are now experiencing; whether they are financial, professional guidance, social support etc. Many of you, or someone you know, have a trusting and respectful relationship towards your conventional heart specialist and I respect that. However, it’s also true that your specialist needs to trust and respect you. Some of you may not be able to afford ASC therapy at present, but becoming aware of ways to raise the funds for a much improved life would be easier once that first step is taken to see how much the quality of life improves with ASC treatment, and how this potentially turns a sick patient from the path of more sickness firmly onto the path of health. The improved lives of patients, all documented with real data about ASC treatment, and the follow-up support by Theravitae and the Bangkok heart hospital is the proof.
I heartily encourage everyone to log onto the RSCI website to talk to Don and his staff. Let their informed and supportive guidance help you make the best decision for you. As for my specialists back home, I have a new one who’s open to the idea of ASC treatment and is supporting me with my follow-up care. And my family doctor is also coming around, albeit quietly. I’ll head back to the Bangkok Heart hospital in a few days for my 6 month check up, where I don’t expect that I’ll need to be told that my health is better; in fact, I can’t wait to tell them how much better it is!
And finally, as I recently said to my dear friend, saviour, and colleague, “I may not be the Chairman of the Board, but I am the CEO of my life and my medical team members are the employees. I need to be equipped to lead the inquiry into my health and while I listen to my employees, I will also need to decide what’s best.” She simply replied, “I’m so glad YOU made the decision to have the treatment, because you can’t fake all the changes we see in you.” And to that comment, I stand proudly and humbly at the same time, in gratitude for my newfound lease on life thanks to ASC and Vescell.
It is now the end of September 2010, and I am still feeling the amazing effects of Vescell. There’s only one more detail, of course, and that’s whether or not my new stem cells will hone in and repair the problematical scar tissue that’s causing the VF’s. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see in time, and I remain, as always, open to the possibilities, with courage and conviction in myself and most of all, in this wonderful treatment.
SUPER STEMMYS – DORIS AND THE SUPERCELLS |
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www.repairstemcells.com |
www.donrmargolis.com |
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LEGAL DISCLAIMER This
Newsletter is for educational purposes only and not to be taken as medical
advice. |
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