Ethical Considerations of Treating Parkinsons With Cord Blood

Thought to affect approximately 0.37% of the US population, Parkinson's disease causes muscle rigidity, tremors, slowed movement, a characteristic shuffling gait and dementia. While not fatal, advanced cases of Parkinson's disease often cause other health complications. Its ultimate cause is unknown, but its symptoms result directly from the deterioration of brain cells, which fail to produce chemicals that regulate motor functions. Because of this, it is thought that embryonic stem cells could be used to replace the diminished brain cells and bring about an effective cure. Controversy over stem cell collection has led to the use of umbilical cord blood, and public cord blood banks have been established for this purpose. Entrepreneurs have also established their own cord blood banks, using the selling point of freezing the cord blood of newborn infants and saving it for treating later illness.

Embryonic stem cells cultivated from cord blood are currently used for research towards a cure for Parkinson's Disease.

While there are no ethical arguments against using cord blood to treat Parkinson's disease, there is an ethical dilemma about the banking of cord blood. While public cord banks exist, stem cells, like bone marrow, are more effective when donated from a family member. Private cord blood banks exist that will, for a fee, freeze an infants cord blood against the eventuality that they or another family member might need it in the future. The dilemma becomes: shall I protect my family in the best way possible or help contribute to the general protection of my community?

Given that everyone has equal access to the public banks and you can afford private banking, self-interest says that you should bank the cord blood privately because you will then have access to both the public banks of non-related blood and the privately banked blood. But almost all schools of ethical thought would say that you should not do this. The ethicist would say that citizenship and social custodianship are virtues just as much as family custodianship and self-care, and that all the virtues must be cultivated in harmony. The Kantian and objectivist would ask you to note that if everyone were to follow this course of action, there would be no public blood banks. This violates both the "moral Imperative" and "enlightened self-Interest" because it is unlikely that everyone could assure the health of their entire family with the cord blood of a few children, and no research would be possible at all. Thus by trying to assure only your own health, no one's health is assured, including your own. The utilitarian would say that more people will always potentially benefit from a donation than from private banking, and the humanist would say that donation alleviates the most suffering. In all cases we come to the same conclusion: while it seems to be in your best interest to bank blood privately, it is not.

While there is no known cure for Parkinson's disease, there are treatments and some patients are able to live reasonably normal lives. Although research with stem cells has been promising, there is no guarantee that stem cell research will lead to a cure for Parkinson's disease.