Cord Blood Banking Only Makes Sense if It's a Shared Effort

Companies such as Cord Blood Registry, Boston-based Viacord, and about 20 others are betting that anxiety about these illnesses will induce parents to fork over about $1,500 plus a $100 annual fee to store a healthy newborn's umbilical-cord blood as "insurance."

Cord Blood Registry stated in September that it had 250,000 stored units, and reported that business doubled last year. Some obstetricians estimate that one in five patients pay to bank cord blood.

Yet the American Academy of Pediatrics states "private storage of cord blood as "biological insurance" is unwise," and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states parents shouldn't feel they must "invest considerable sums in such a highly speculative venture."

It's quite unlikely a family would ever use privately banked cord blood. Moreover, private storage undermines what could be a far more useful public system that saves lives.

Many companies exaggerate the likelihood that a family will need privately stored cord blood. For example, Viacord's website states ''the lifetime odds of being diagnosed with a disease treatable by cord-blood stem cells is one in 27" and that future research may increase the risk to ''one in two." These figures sound impressive, but are misleading.

Some private banks imply that cord blood contains many "stem cells" that can heal organs like the brain and pancreas someday, thus curing Parkinson's disease, diabetes, and other illnesses. But cord blood isn't rich in the specific kinds of stem cells that might heal these organs, so this use is theoretical at best. Also, some stem cells can be obtained later from children and adults, so storing cord blood isn't the only chance to get them.

In the end, families with a history of cancers like leukemia or certain genetic diseases (like sickle-cell anemia or Hurler's syndrome) that improve with bone-marrow transplants could consider privately banking cord blood with a reputable company, since there is a reasonable chance that a child's cord blood could be used by another member of the family.

But the value of private cord-blood banking for healthy families doesn't seem to justify the costs, though for the well-off, it's at least a harmless way to satisfy medical anxiety, unlike, say, whole-body CT scanning with its radiation exposure and wild-goose-chase findings.

What makes more sense is having a public cord-blood bank that could connect donors to people in need. Today, about a quarter of patients can't find a match when they need a bone-marrow transplant, though about 5 million people are registered bone-marrow donors. (The problem is worse for minorities, because they are underrepresented in the donor pool.) If Americans saved and shared cord blood from all 4 million newborns each year, thousands of lives might be saved.


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