Re: [NickDG] Maggot Donation Info . . .
Let’s look at what Nick Rugai is trying to organize for Maggot:
Nick wants to raise money to fly Maggot to a third world country (Costa Rica or China appear to be the top candidates at this moment). He wants to put him on a commercial flight as soon as possible, and certainly before his spinal fusion has a chance to set. He wants to take him to a clinic in a third world country, to have an untested medical procedure with no history of proven success. He wants to do this before Maggot has finished his rehabilitation care.
What are the chances that such treatments can be successful? Nick writes “Jerry has one chance and once chance only to walk again” and “trust me when I tell you that stem cells are Jerry’s only real hope.” There has
never been a peer reviewed study documenting significant improvement as a result of stem cell treatments in a spinal cord injury case similar to Maggot’s.
Nick cites two articles on his web page. Let’s look at them:
In the
Nature article
here, there is a report of a C3 quadraplegic (that’s someone with a spinal cord injury just a few inches below their skull) who underwent experimental stem cell treatment, and recovered some sensation to C4 (that’s about an inch lower) and some motor function to C5 (that’s about two inches lower). In this case, that’s a great improvement. Instead of being on a mechanical ventilator to breathe, this patient may be able to come off the ventilator at some times. He might recover some deltoid and bicep function. He’s still a quadriplegic, and won’t be able to (for example) use a manual wheelchair, but getting off the vent is a serious improvement in his life. This is the most successful treatment yet reported anywhere.
What if Maggot got similar fantastic results? With his level of injury (variously reported as somewhere between T2 and T5—that’s just below the armpits down to somewhere in the middle of his chest), a sensory improvement of one level would give him additional feeling over a band about an inch wide in the middle of his chest. He might even get some motor control to an inch or so below that. He’d still be unable to use his abdominal muscles, meaning he couldn’t sit up without using his hands to push or pull himself up. That’s a long way from Nick’s call for him to “run and walk again.”
Let’s look at the other article, from
NeuroRehabilitation and Neural Repair, that Nick cites on his web page. The abstract is
here. In this case, the authors observed 7 spinal cord injury patients who received stem cell treatments. 5 of the 7 patients suffered serious complications, including
meningitis. Most importantly, “no clinically useful sensorimotor, disability or autonomic improvements were found.” The authors of the article note that “Perioperative morbidity and lack of functional benefit were identified as the most serious clinical shortcomings.” In other words, the procedures didn’t help any of the patients, and 5 of the 7 actually got sicker as a result.
What will Maggot miss out on as a result of doing this? He’ll be missing out on world class rehabilitation care he’s currently scheduled for at one America’s (and the world’s) top facilities (
Kessler). He’ll lose necessary care at a time that is critical to his long term recovery. He’d also, in all likelihood, be going against his doctor’s orders, which could result in his current physicians refusing to participate in his follow up care.
Maggot is early in the course of his recovery, and spinal cord injury is extremely complex. It’s entirely possible, especially with an incomplete spinal cord injury, that he could regain a great deal of function, and might even walk again. I believe that his best chance for recovery, and returning to as much of his life as possible, is not in unproven, experimental procedures, but rather in following a proven course of rehabilitation with dedicated professionals who specialize in helping people with injuries like his.
Could the money raised for Maggot be spent in better ways to help him? I’m not sure what kind of resources he can tap, but the expenses involved in dealing with a return to normal life after a spinal cord injury are substantial. Adaptive equipment, wheelchair(s), home modifications, re-training (especially important here, as Maggot’s current work is physical labor he probably won’t be able to return to). Maybe we should be looking for ways to help him with some of those expenses and efforts, rather than shipping him off somewhere for experimental procedures with no record of success in cases like his.
My wife is a physician who specializes in rehabilitation of, among other things, spinal cord injury and brain injury—exactly what Maggot is going through. She spends all day, every day helping people in those sorts of situation. She’s a real expert on these conditions--board certified, licensed, and practicing this sort of medicine every day. She’s offered to talk with anyone who wants her professional opinions on either the efficacy of this proposed stem cell treatment, or on the best treatments and therapies for Maggot to receive, to get back into his life as quickly, and as fully, as possible. If you’d like to speak with her, send me a PM with your phone number, and I’ll have her call you.
