Fighting chronic disease and disability
"Like an undeclared World War, chronic disease cost America $2.3 trillion in 2014, more than the year's federal income taxes and national debt combined. But California is fighting back," says author Don C. Reed, called the 'grandfather of stem cell research advocacy," and author of the new book, "Stem Cell Battles: Proposition 71 and Beyond: How Ordinary People Can Fight Back Against the Crushing Burden of Chronic Disease'—with a Posthumous Forward by Christopher Reeve.
The California stem cell program faces near-endless opposition: the author is spat on in the street, a stem cell laboratory is bombed, multiple lawsuits are brought, as well as micro-managing legislation from the Capitol—as well as the cult-like 'personhood' belief that a fertilized egg is a legal human, and stem cell research therefore becomes murder.
Fortunately, reason prevails. In 71 short chapters and three in-depth interviews, the book introduces great scientists like Hans Keirstead, who may have the answer to both paralysis and cancer, and Bertha Chen, the 'gorilla gynecologist' (literally: she was Koko the sign language gorilla's doctor!), who wants to cure urinary incontinence, patient advocate leaders like Bob Klein, the $6 billion dollar man, without whom the program would never have begun. Across America and around the world, scientists, patients and advocates are working as partners, dedicated women and men trying to 'turn stem cells into cures'-and beginning to win.
Step by careful step, successes build:
- Diabetes-fighting stem cell 'credit cards' worn under the skin
- A paralysis treatment shrinks spinal cord injuries' wounds
- Formerly blind patients get drivers' licenses
- Two dozen new therapies in or approaching clinical trials
More information:
www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9255
Provided by World Scientific Publishing