Parkinson's Disease
An article in this week's NEJM (and described, in detail, in a front page article in Thursday's NYT) described the outcome of the first fully controlled study of fetal cell transplant study into PD patients.
The results were devastating.
Not only did those receiving the alloograft show no improvement over sham-operated controls, but a (mostly younger) subset in the experimental group developed what appears to be a permanent exacerbation to their symtomology. This outcome seems to be the result of chronic dopamine overdose from the implanted cells. And, unlike the pharmacologically-induced form of PD enhancement, the transplant-based exacerbation is irreversible.
These data completely reinforce an overwhelming, and decades-old, concern of mine, and a viewpoint I've expressed often since the inception of this thread: the concept of neurological replacement therapy, whether based on cellular augmentation, growth factor supplementation, etc. is bound to not simply fail...but to initiate a cascade of unintended side effects with tragic consequences for (largely) unsuspecting patients.
Our incredibly trivial understanding of the workings of the brain places us many decades away from restorative approaches. And informed consent laws must include substantive liability clauses against individual researchers and, more importantly, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to avoid the pathetic spectacle of egotism and greed trumping patient welfare. |
