Added: 11/22/2007 |
Will Science Affect The Future Of The Paralympics?If the reader is searching for many details about the history of the sports event that glorifies the paralyzed athlete, the reader will not find them in the following article. The article below makes only a brief mention of the history of that special athletic competition. The following article focuses more on the future of the Paralympics, rather than the Games past history.
Paralyzed patients, those confined to a wheel chair, take part in the Paralympics. Still the future of their special international competition could be destined to last only another twenty to twenty-five years. That forecast reflects announcement of a new scientific discovery.
Researchers have now found a way to change normal skin cells into stem cells. They have taken cultured skin cells, and they have injected them with a virus. That virus gave the skin cells the ability to transform into a different cell type, something once associated with no cell type other than embryonic stem cells. How does that discovery relate to the Paralympics?
Before July of 1948 and the holding of the Stoke Mandeville Games, society had given little thought to the potential strength in the arms of a patient with paralyzed legs.. Yet after that archery competition, it was clear that confinement to a wheel chair did not need to weaken a person’s arms. That confinement also had no affect on the eyesight of the wheelchair-bound individual.
The Stokes Mandeville Games allowed paralyzed patients to earn a larger amount of respect from society as a whole. That respect has now translated into political power. Paralyzed patients in the United States are lobbying for government support of stem cell research. Such research could usher in advances in the treatment of paralyzing injuries.
Those who have objected to government support of stem cell research have been against use of embryonic stem cells. The new discovery suggests a possible way to perform stem cell research without using embryonic stem cells. Some believe that all use of embryonic stem cells should cease immediately.
Of course, much remains to be investigated in the area of skin cell transformation. Can the cells with a virus be used safely in a human being? Progress with stem cell research depends on the safety of using available stem cells in patients who can benefit from such cells. A paralyzed patient could benefit from a safe stem cell, once that cell took on the properties of a healthy muscle cell.
Perhaps in 20 to 25 years, physicians will routinely prescribe use of stem cells on paralyzed patients. Perhaps society will then find that fewer and fewer people need to be confined to a wheel chair. Should that happen, there would be fewer and fewer potential Paralympics’ athletes.
Science could take as long as five years to learn the full potential of the transformed skin cells. In just a short period of future time, not all paralyzed patients would be able to step out of their wheelchairs. Eventually though, the world would have far fewer people who could participate in the Paralympics.
Article comments:
No comments for this article yet. Post your comment now!
