Can the Umbilical Cord Save Lives?

June 26, 2000 -- When Lisa Taner, 34, learned that she was pregnant, she wanted to donate her umbilical cord blood, a once discarded birth byproduct that she knew could save lives. Not only would she give birth to one child, but by banking her cord blood she might have the opportunity to help another child survive. Or so she thought.

Despite the tremendous promise of cord blood cells in treating disease, it turns out that few public blood banks collect this resource, and private banks charge high fees for the service. In fact, Taner found it impossible to donate her baby's cells -- and is now among the growing chorus of parents who say it's time for that to change.

The Belmont, Calif., woman had read a magazine story reporting that public cord blood banks were accepting donations of this rich source of stem cells (immature blood cells), to treat children ill with leukemia and other cancers. This account, like many others over the last few years, reported on medical studies that had shown that umbilical cord blood transplants were a less-invasive alternative to bone marrow transplants in treating certain diseases in infants and young children.

But upon calling the Cord Blood Foundation -- a local public cord blood bank in the San Francisco area -- Taner received some bad news: The foundation had suspended its public donation program indefinitely. With no federal money and few alternative resources, it could no longer afford to process and store any more cord blood than it had already stockpiled.

Taner then looked to other organizations around the country but found they served only people in their respective regions. Her last remaining option was to pay a private bank to collect and store blood that would then be available only for her own family's use -- defeating her purpose of attempting to help children generally.

"My family was very community-oriented, very volunteer-oriented, and I figured this was something I could do that wouldn't require a great investment of time," the former property manager and math and reading tutor explains. "As I learned more about it, I became even more eager to donate. I was pretty disappointed when I found out it wasn't possible." Ultimately, she decided against private banking.

To Bank or Not to Bank?

Within the last two years, parents like Lisa Taner had come to expect that a network of public banks would be able to store cord blood and save hundreds of children. Yet the expense of establishing such a bank is so high -- an organization can spend between $1 million and $2 million to get up and running -- that few are able to survive financially.

Private cord blood banking, on the other hand, which is funded by individuals who pay for the service, is touted as a form of biological insurance -- a way of harvesting one's own tissues in the hopes of treating some future illness.