Christmas shopping for the unborn baby has never been easy. However, stem cell technology may have brought what is possibly this year’s most original gift. For a mere £1,250, it is possible to harvest stem cells from the umbilical cord at birth and store them frozen for up to 25 years.
“Stem cells are not just for life – they’re for Christmas,” said Shamshad Ahmed, managing director of Smart Cells International, a company offering stem cell gift certificates as a new line this year.
He has sold the idea to 50 customers so far – mainly grandparents who want their descendants to have access to stem cells’ healing powers in the event of illness or injury. The cells are separated from the blood of the umbilical cord, cryogenically frozen and stored at minus 180C.
Does Nieman-Marcus list this?
Ok, Now THIS is a good idea…….
Does’nt infrienge on the religious right and pasifies the left. All while being a good idea to keep on hand.
At least this time they are focusing on the ethical type of stem cell treatment, incidentally also the ones that have been the most successful to date.
Rob, the religious right (whichI am a member of) has never had problems with adult stem cells or placenta stem cells (these are just another type of adult stem cells in my book but they are using diffent names because some one has a patent on “adult stem cells”), it is the embronic stem cells we have a problem with.
Both adult stem cells or placenta stem cells do not include the terination of an unborn child’s life while embronic stem cells do kill an unborn child.