Few doctors advise private banking of cord blood 'just in case'

1990: Few doctors see value in public cord blood banking
1995: Few doctors beleive cord blood is better than bone marrow for transplants in children
2000: cord blood use increase, bone marrow decreases
2004: few doctors would use cord blood for anthing but hematological applications
Today: >300 clinical trials for a variety of diseases.
Tomorrow: ????

As a physician in Boston I concur. There is almost zero reason to store cord blood privately (and selfishly) in an expensive cord blood bank. The far more important storage method is to donate cord blood to a public cord blood bank, which functions similarly to a traditional blood bank and provides cord blood from the bank to sick people in need. Cord blood can be transplanted similar to bone marrow cell transplants for patients with hematologic malignancies like leukemia and lymphoma. By storing the cord blood privately, needy patients are prevented from receiving a possible matched cord blood, and most will simply go to waste as the odds of your specific child ever using their stored blood are similar to the odds of winning the lottery. Do your wallet and your fellow man a favor and donate cord blood to public cord blood banks.

Why don't Boston area hospitals participate in public cord blood donation? As far as I know UMASS Med Center is the only hospital in MA to collect cord blood for public donation.

Public vs. Private. Sounds conspicuously like the debate we are having over the economy. I for one do not trust the government to manage anything, especially my healthcare options. Private firms are far more efficient in my opinion. I'm not sure that I would call a patient 'selfish' for choosing to store their cord blood. There is no need for physicians to make value judgements for their patients anymore. This isn't the 1950's and consumers are far more savvy when it comes to making decisions about their health care.

As a physician in New York, I would disagree with the above comment from the physician in Boston. I don't think it's selfish and if the family can afford it, they should store their cord blood, especially if faced with a family history of leukemia or lymphoma. I recommend it all the time. Is it selfish to to care about your life, the lives of your loved ones? I don't think so. Especially with the progress being made in stem cell research, with the possibility of using the stems cells to help a person who may, in the future, suffer spinal cord injuries, it's a no brainer. Just like you work and save for your child's education, work to make your children's lives better than your own, saving cord blood is a positive safety precaution for future issues.

It's ridiculously expensive to do this, and the cord blood banking companies are desperate for customers. I know this because I worked for a website where the companies advertised. They spend HUGE amounts of money in aggressive marketing efforts for just a handful of customers each year. And as an employee of this website, I was offered a "friends and family" discount by the cord blood banking co. And no, I still didn't bank my baby's cord blood.

JohnQ - the point of public vs. private has nothing to do with government management. It's whether the cells will be available to just you, or to anyone who has a need and is a match, as is the case with our current blood banking system (example = the Red Cross, which is not a government agency). Having more people contribute to a public system increases the utility for everyone, and increases the probability (greatly) that an individual unit will be used.

Private cord blood storing is a huge money making racket. Let me buy a liquid nitrogen container, put the blood in and then I am done. Liquid nitrogen is really cheap and you can store a lot of blood with not too much liquid nitrogen. No reason to pay thousands of dollars per year for it.

Yes, it is extremely expensive to store privately, especially not knowing if you would ever us it. I have my first child’s stored and I plan to do it for my second. For that slight chance that my child may need it, is worth the extra expense. What if I didn’t do it and had to depend on publicly stored cells and there was no match. I think this issue is a matter of private opinion not public. It’s what works best for the individual.

Dr in NY, where did I say parents shouldn't store the cord blood? What I am saying is it IS selfish (and a massive waste of money) for a parent to pay thousands of dollars to have their child's cord blood privately stored for the possible use ONLY for their child, when instead they could donate the blood to a public cord blood storage facility from which anyone in need can be matched. Realistically what should be done is cord blood should be obtained at every delivery and banked similar to a Red Cross blood bank. There are extremely few conditions for which cord blood has shown any actual benefit, so privately storing your own child's blood only for your own child is extremely wasteful both monetarily and for those patient's who could actually benefit from it and will never get the chance. And to be honest I question your motivation for encouraging your patients to privately bank cord blood. What data do you provide them with as sound medical evidence to do so? Private cord blood banks prey on a new parent's fear for their child's safety and hope to profit from it, nothing more. Do you also think we should have private blood banks? Private organ banks? I'm sorry, but I cannot see any rational reason for private banking over public banking other than fear-mongering and profit.

Actually I don't think Private banking is that profitable a business. ViaCord, one of the pioneers and largest players in the in the industry was purchased by Perkin Elmer in 2007 and at that point they had $21 million in losses on $38 million in revenues. This is from a company that pioneered the cord blood banking industry and in their history as a company (more than 10 years) they hadn't been able to make it a consistently profitable business. I think there are a lot of cord blood banking players because they expected it to be a boon industry and it just hasn't turned out that way.

I delivered at St. Vincent's in Worcester and was able to donate my cord blood to the public bank operated by the National Bone Marrow Donation Program (collected by Cyrobanks Intl). My doc provided me with the information on how to arrange the donation in my first trimester. She was happy to take the extra effort during the delivery. Not sure if all OBs are like that. The whole process was simple. I did nothing but take the time to fill out all the forms. The donation kit, once completed by my OB after my son was born, was picked up by a courier. I never considered private banking (the odds of needing the blood in the future for some unforseen disease in my family are so low). So, what was I going to do with the cord blood anyway? Why not donate something that's just going to get thrown out when it could SAVE someone's life?

I am confused Dr. in Boston. I did the math. $2000 + $125 per year over 20 years is just over $4k. Divided out over 20 years and 12 months, thats roughly $20 per month. How is that expensive? My car and home insurance is more per month. Over 100 treatments have been done treating CP and other neurological conditions in the last 5 years and this wasnt even being done over 5 years ago. CP affects 1 in 300 children I believe and right now you can only use your own cells for treatment. Now tell me again how paying $20 a month for something that potentially has a 1 in 300 chance of use is expensive. Also, who said that if I privately bank that I cant also register with the national register for donating if the need arises. Then again, lets ask Dr. K from Duke where the majority of her samples shes used in treatment have come from for treating CP, Private or Public. The study addressed here is also suspect. These dr's they interviewed had only done 50 total transplants of which 18% of the transplants the individual used their own cells. Sounds like these are VERY experienced dr's in doing transplants. Again, we see really poor reporting with a specific agenda. Why not just say, private bank if you can afford $20 and donate if you cant, but at least dont throw them away, which is what happens to 85% of all cord blood. Really, thats the true issue here.

The value is in the future potential uses. The value is not losing your child's prenatal stem cells. Besides that, there are companies now offering all inclusive packages for as little as $1300 with a fixed storage rate for 25 yrs.

It is all about $$$ my friends... Please do not expect the public bank to fund all collections; they will be put under chapter 11 soon if they do so. It is an expensive business to run a public bank and if the affordables are able to bank in privately, WHY NOT?! After all there are so many births each month and much more than the public bank can afford to collect. Please do not forget that free capitalism is the way that keeps our economy spining after all. Furthermore I believe that Private banks have contributed much to the employment directly and indirectly too.