Cord blood – private of public?

ABC radio’s program PM last aired a story last night about ongoing controversy of the merits of private cord blood banking. That is, where parents choose to store the stem cells found in their child’s umbilical cord in a private cord blood bank for the exclusive use of that child should they ever get a disease that could be treated with those stem cells. It costs a few thousand dollars to do this as opposed to the free service provided by the public cord blood banks. Of course, via the public system should your child need a cord blood donation you cannot be sure of finding a genetically suitable donor.

The controversy lies largely with how the private cord blood banks are promoting themselves to parents. Some are calling it deceptive marketing by promising stuff that cord blood is unlikely to be able to deliver.  One could argue that most marketing does this, but you would hope in such a crucial decision as this parents have also discussed the options with their own doctors and are making a decision with at least some clues.

One things that wasn’t raised in last night’s story was that the amount of stem cells in one umbilical cord is tiny meaning in a lot of cases patients requiring stem cells from cord blood need cells from more than one cord, which means they will have to dip into the public banks anyway.

More info

The Australian Stem Cell Centre has a good fact sheet with links to further info on the use of cord blood and the private and public cord blood banks