Just too much of a “security risk”

According to this story in the London Daily Telegraph, doctors from the Bristol, England lab where the 60 million stem cells had been grown were prepared to fly the cells to Ms. Castillo in Barcelona. However, easyJet staff allegedly refused to allow the package on board, claiming it contained more than 100ml of fluid that “posed a security risk.”

A security risk? We’re talking about saving a life

The cells, which took five months to grow, had to arrive in Barcelona within 16 hours before becoming unusable.

Professor Martin Birchall of Bristol University says he begged airline staff to make an exception and repair credit fast with them, Claudia Castillo and the rest of the caring world.

easyJet refused his request

According to Birchall:

They said it couldn’t go on because it would be a security risk – but I had been talking to people on a regular basis. I was so furious, trying to explain months of work. The clock was ticking. We’d taken the cells out of their culture media an hour before. We thought about driving to Barcelona, but that would have taken too long.

Luckily, one Mr. Philip Jungerbluth, a medical student who was to accompany the cells on their flight, saved the day. Birchall again:

Philip said he had a friend from medical school who used to fly and within a couple of phone calls he got him to leave Germany and be with us and he said he would charge us cost only.

14,000 pounds saved Claudia Castillo’s life

The professor paid to charter a jet out of his own pocket, though the cost was later reimbursed by Bristol University. Apparently the sanctity of human life trumps policy.

Here is the life that was saved. Here is Claudia Castillo:

What did easyJet have to say for themselves after this public relations debacle?

According to a spokesman:

We do not have any record of the passenger’s request to carry medical materials on board the flight.

easyJet did refund the cost of the flight, but they lost so much more. Don’t credit repair of an ailing woman’s health to easyJet, world. Credit Martin Birchall and Philip Jungerbluth for caring about human life.

“A new age in surgical care“

Doctors from four separate European universities performed the surgery this past June on Claudia Castillo in Barcelona, Spain. Ms. Castillo had been suffering from an acute shortage of breath due to a failing airway following severe tuberculosis. She had been hospitalized in March with a windpipe so badly damaged that she could walk no more than a few steps at a time.

The struggle to draw breath was too great

According to Bristol University, one of the places that assisted in the weeks of preparation for Ms. Castillo’s surgery in Barcelona:

The only conventional option remaining was a major operation to remove her left lung which carries a risk of complications and a high mortality rate

The windpipe itself came from a donor. A three-inch segment of trachea was taken from a 51-year-old who had died from a cerebral hemorrhage. Using a new technique developed at Padua University, the trachea was stripped of its donor’s cells so that they would not interfere with the transplant process.

At the same time, Castillo’s stem cells were taken from her own bone marrow, grown into “a large population” and used to “seed” the donated windpipe using a new technique to incubate cells.

Seems to me that donors like Ms. Castillo’s are a tribute to us all, an individual more than willing to help repair credit against the ills of the human race.

Her body did not reject it

It is not uncommon for organ rejection to occur after a transplant. This is because the recipient’s immune system reacts against the foreign organ. Thus, transplant patients must typically rely upon immunosuppressant drugs to stop this from happening.

And she didn’t need transplant drugs

According to a Bristol University statement, Castillo has not developed antibodies to her graft, despite not taking immunosuppressive drugs.

So this is exciting news, based not only upon the fact that Castillo hasn’t needed potentially debilitating medication in order to function, but that her surgery was performed with the essential assistance of her own stem cells.

It has been speculated that President-elect Barack Obama may reverse the Bush Administration’s restrictions on stem cell research. Anthony Hollander, a professor at Bristol University, said ethical concerns relating to embryonic stem cell research had not surfaced because Castillo’s surgery used only her own stem cells.

“This was not embryonic stem cell research”

What was it? It’s something some would call a miracle, others a fantastic medical breakthrough that will expand the boundaries of what we know. I call it a necessary step toward saving lives, rather than committing them to the dustbin of lost hope.

Several months after Ms. Castillo’s surgery, it appears that there will be no transplant rejection. She has the chance to live a life of quality. What value can be placed on such a thing? It is my sincere hope that Mr. Obama is able to take stem cell research out of the realm of “morality” and bring America back from the Dark Ages. Credit repair of individuals like Claudia Castillo to medical science and the miracle that is the human mind. Give credit where credit is due.