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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.