Cord blood stem cells are a growing substitute for bone marrow stem cell transplants in a number of diseases of the blood and are increasingly considered to have therapeutic poential for other diseases.
Writing in Politics.co.uk, a british political web journal, David Burrowes, a conservative member of parlaiment, said, "A further advantage is the readiness of the stem cells retrieved from umbilical cords. They are collected, tissue-typed and frozen after the birth of the child and then are made available as soon as a patient requires them. This radically reduces the waiting time before a patient can access a transplant. Currently the average time it takes for a patient to receive their transplant is 160 days. Over those 160 days, many patients become progressively weaker, as do the chances of a successful transplant."
Speaking of the British Medical System he added, "For an investment of £50 million, spread over five years, Britain can have that 50,000 unit cord blood bank. A 50,000 unit blood bank would provide economies of scale that would reduce the cost to the NHS for every treatment as well as radically reducing the need to import stem cell units from abroad, which is a common and expensive practice today. We often talk about investing to save but in this case it would save not just £6 million but 200 lives a year. In a parliament that will be characterised by the difficult decisions it makes, this is one decision I believe we can't afford not to take."
In the stem cell theraply biotech arena, where so much is expected while so much remains unproven, cord blood stem cells are defining a stem cell therapy that not only works but may be more cost effective than the method being used now. In another act of stem cell therapy recognition via both cord blood stem cells and bone marrow, Nordstrom's has offered up to $75,000 to raise awareness in the African American community of the need for umbilical cord blood collection and bone marrow doners.