Cures For Chronic Diseases Will Shake Up System

The Capital Times :: OPINION :: WEB

May is mental health month, and it's a time once again when mental health and other chronic disease advocacy and education groups should consider anew their journey and hopes for the future. As a father of a son with mental illness, I ask all Wisconsin citizens to consider the following questions.

Does your organization's strategic planning extend to the day when medical therapeutics do more than mitigate chronic disease symptoms but actually cure the disease? Can your organization envision a not-too-distant time when your service recipients will suddenly ask, "Why didn't you inform us that our illness might someday be cured through stem cell-based medications and therapies?" "What actions did your organization take to ensure that our cell-based medical needs and health care rights were protected during the early developmental phase of this research?"

If there is indeed a possibility of a cure -- and the scientific community now clearly believes there is -- it is now ethically and morally incumbent on all of us to begin to educate ourselves about such research and begin now to educate our membership about its revolutionary healing potential. No reputable physician or stem cell research scientist today would any longer consider such miracle therapy a fantasy. Today all leading university research and medical centers and increasingly the large pharma industry have established their very own cell-based regenerative medicine and research centers.

Chronically ill members need real hope of a better future for themselves and their families, especially when there is now empirical research evidence on which to base this hope. We have now reached the point when it's not if but only when such miraculous therapies will exist.

Presently patient-specific stem cells are being used to diagnose the onset of chronic diseases and for testing cell-based drugs for human toxicity and immune reactions. Stem cell research-centered biotech companies and treatment providers are growing by leaps and bounds. Worldwide, hundreds of stem cell clinical trials are now in place. (To protect the consumer from unsafe and unproven stem cell treatment, see the International Society of Stem Cell Research's "Patient Handbook on Stem Cell Therapies.") In Madison, long before there was any scientific consensus about the etiology of mental illness, that which is now called the National Alliance on Mental Illness pioneered what it believed was the genetic and neurological cell-based origin of this disease. From that point on the blaming of the patient and/or the patient's family for this disease stopped. Now is a similar moment in Wisconsin's mental health history when change is on the horizon.

To prepare for this not-too-distant future, perhaps the first step would be to establish a goal of becoming more informed about stem cell research, and its potential application to your particular disease group. A second goal might be collaborating with your university regenerative medicine center and/or the stem cell-centered biotech company in your area.

Often the elixir for strategic planning and a breakthrough is hope. Like the people we advocate for, we are often left stunted and frustrated without this positive emotional impulse.

For more information about what action your organization can take right now, visit my blog: danecountyalmanac.blogspot.com.

William R. Benedict of Madison advocates for stem cell research funding.