For the past few months animal
rights groups and activists have been repeating the same old line about
new advances in Genetic Engineering — it’ll never work, it’s cruel because
some of it uses animals, and it is being pushed just so greedy companies
can bilk people out of their money.
So imagine my surprise when
it was announced this week that the first genetic therapy to correct a
human health problem has been tested and appears to work rather well.
The experiment involved injecting a gene for a protein that helps the
heart build new blood vessels to relieve chest pains from angina. The
16 patients who received the injections of vascular endothelia growth
factor suffer from clogged arteries but were considered to week to undergo
bypass surgery or angioplasty.
Sixteen patients of Dr. Jeffrey
Isner of St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston who suffered from extreme
chest pains with even minor exertions all saw substantial improvements
in their angina. Of 11 patients who were followed up after three months,
six were entirely free of pain.
One of the patients, farmer
Floyd Stokes from DeLeon Texas, described his experience on the new treatment,
“One Sunday morning I woke up and told my wife I hadn’t felt so good
in 15 years. I felt fantastic.”
More studies are required to measure
the long term improvement to decide whether this treatment is more efficacious
than currently available treatments, but so far the results are promising.
Thank goodness these researchers weren’t listening when animal rights
activists said genetic engineering would never work.