BobHarris.com - The stem cell debate: this stuff is personal

Books! Actual books!

"A rollicking ride of intellectual discovery and emotional growth... his comic timing never fails"

-- The Wall Street Journal

"Pulls you in like a good sports story"

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Endearingly frank... jubilant... lighthearted and fast-paced"

-- New York Newsday

"A surprisingly touching memoir"

-- Entertainment Weekly

"Snappy and informative"

-- Associated Press

"Effortlessly funny and informative... tender, human, and very wise... A must for anyone who loves Jeopardy!, or has ever seen it, or is breathing."

-- Joss Whedon, creator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"I haven't seen Jeopardy! since I was a kid, and yet I was charmed and amused by Bob Harris's fascinating and surprisingly suspenseful book. Through sheer force of personality, he takes this brainy TV show and makes it funny and easy to relate to."

-- Ira Glass, creator and host, This American Life

"A surprisingly intimate, entertaining book."

-- Orson Scott Card, 4-time Hugo Award winner, author of Ender's Game

"Funny, enlightening -- and just might help you win a million bucks on Jeopardy!"

-- A. J. Jacobs, author of The Know-It-All

"A masterful job of describing the feel of Jeopardy! in the heat of battle... I knew Bob was a great guy and a fantastic Jeopardy! player. Now I've found that he's also a wonderful writer. I think I'm starting to hate him."

-- Brad Rutter, top money-winner in Jeopardy! history

Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

“Revelatory... Harris's sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating... witty, horrific, and necessary.”

— Boston Globe

"Brave... irreverent... charges into the thick of the globe's myriad simmering wars... hilariously relaxed."

— New York Observer

"Only Bob could make a user’s guide to our increasingly hostile world this absorbing, this breezy, and—ultimately—this hopeful.”

— Ken Jennings, author of Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs

“Fascinating, enlightening, and surprisingly: NOT TOTALLY DEPRESSING. A gimlet-eyed look at the world we endure that’s also suitable for enjoying with a gimlet.”

— John Hodgman, author of The Areas of My Expertise
and correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"All three [presidential] candidates should read all three of these [recommended] books, but McCain gets first crack at Bob Harris's "Who Hates Whom“... a lighthearted overview of the insurrections and civil wars in the world today."

— Steven Pinker, author of The Stuff of Thought, in the New York Times Book Review

Main

Dennis Perrin

The stem cell debate: this stuff is personal

Tag it now -

Thursday, 02 November 2006

I've been reluctant for some reason to get into this here, which is silly, I realize, because there are large chunks of Prisoner of Trebekistan about dealing with my family's various health troubles.

One of the things that losing on Jeopardy! taught me, finally, is that I do not know shit, and even if I did, it wouldn't matter as much as trying to be good to people I love. One of whom is my sister. Not to give away the ending of the book. Anyhow.

First, let's review: one of these things is not like the other.

Thing is, you never know how your own family may be touched by this stuff. As we discover near the end of the book, after decades of mistaken diagnoses, my sister has Crohn's disease, which is definitely just lousy with badness. Crohn's sucks.

And Crohn's one of the many illnesses which may be helped with stem cell research. The first person to ever receive the treatment was reported here in 2001. By 2005, this was the state of the art (CD = Crohn's Disease; HSCT = Hematopoietic Stem Cell Therapy; emphasis is mine):

Eleven of 12 patients entered a sustained remission... After a median follow-up of 18.5 months (range, 7-37 months), only one patient has developed a recurrence of active CD, which occurred 15 months after HSCT. CONCLUSIONS: Autologous HSCT may be performed safely and has a marked salutary effect on CD activity. A randomized study will be needed to confirm the efficacy of this therapy.

There seems to be a current clinical trial listed here, incidentally.

I want my sister to get better so bad I would give a kidney, one lung, three toes, and half my scrotum just to see her hopping around in good health. I can do without those, and a whole lot more. But I need my sister.

So, see, this shit is personal.

This Tuesday, please vote for someone sane.

UPDATE: I should clarify some stem cell stuff, since I'm not a doctor and you probably aren't, either. And keep in mind I don't know diddly about squat, so I could be wrong about anything, including my name.

But as I understand it, the stem cells used in the therapy described above are harvested from the patient's own body, then frozen. Next comes some immunosuppressive chaos, then the transplant, then (with luck) a whole bunch of recovery. I'm oversimplifying, but that's the shape as I get it.

There are risks all along the way. Overall mortality is around 10%, just for buying this ride, not even counting the underlying disease that brought you to the park.

Embryonic stem cells come into play here because they've been shown to have the clear potential to take the place of adult stem cells taken this way, and more effectively, thus reducing some (not all) of the risks to the patient. Which means that if the research goes forward, it's more likely that a procedure like the above may do my sis some good someday.

Also, there are lots of procedures where the patient needs marrow from a donor; in these cases, embryonic stem cells offer the hope of much greater chance of acceptance. So.

Probably clear as mud, but there.