Stem cell transplants
| 5 May, 2011 | Richard P. Grant |
3
|
|
Completely shutting down–‘making safe’, you could say–the damaged Fukushima reactors is likely to take years. The work will put dozens, even hundreds, of people at risk of further exposure to radiation. What is the best way to protect these people?
A paper in the Lancet, Safety of workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, [Free Evaluation], proposes collecting peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) from workers (presumably before they’re exposed to risky conditions) so that they can be used to treat those workers in case of radiation-related injuries.
Sounds like a good idea, but there are a number of caveats. Self-transplantation of these stem cells can rescue injury of bone marrow only but not other at-risk tissues (such as gastrointestinal tract, skin, or lung); the procedures involved carry risks of their own; it’s not going to be cheap. So there needs to be a risk-benefit analysis–not the easiest thing when people’s lives and well-being are at stake. The authors of the paper go further, saying “A judgment of right or wrong on this scheme must be determined from the standpoint of the nuclear workers and their families, not from a point of view of cost–benefit balance in ordinary times.”
What do you think? Should PBSCs be collected from the Fukushima workers and stored just in case? Should workers across the industry, worldwide, be offered the same ‘insurance scheme’?
[poll id=”9″]
|
|
previous post
The idea is sound and cost not be a factor.
Basically what is the cost of treatment etc without this technic and what is the cost of a life
A million times yes, collect the cells, and even if legislation doesnt allow it now, at lease they will have a bank of cells that may save their lives in the future.
While I am against nuclear fuel for so many reasons besides this dilemma, I am amazed that reactors are allowed to be built when in 2011, the only resources to resolve a malfunction like this is to send people in, without 100% protection!?!
I imagine if prime ministers and company heads had to do the work, there would be a work around from suits that give that 100% protection, to using robots etc. Ironic that a country that was blown apart by the bomb and radiation, should suffer from it again 60 years later. And that they are the most technologically advanced country. An unbelievable shame that this harvest even needs consideration.
The potential benefits of possibly life-saving, or at least prolonging, autologous hematopietic cell transplants supersede the obvious arguments against this preventitive measure. Moreover, I would also argue that providing a (more costly) mobilization regimen to obrain a higher percentage on stem and progenitor cells from the workers would be more wise than to simply collect PBMC.