Each of the two public events are designed to engage Albertans in a patient-focused dialogue to demystify stem cell therapies. The forums have been designed to resolve three objectives:
1) to increase public and patient awareness of stem cell therapies, its implications on health care delivery and their potential in preventing and treating degenerative diseases,
2) to establish Alberta’s bio-tech sector as a world leader in the development of stem cell technologies, and
3) to prepare Alberta for the early delivery of stem cell therapy.
BACKGROUND
Because of an aging population and a reduction in infant mortality (due to innovations in medicine and public health), society is faced with an ever-increasing number of people suffering degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Arthritis, etc.
In fact, the treatment of degenerative diseases resulting from aging is currently consuming 80% of health care budgets of most developed nations.
But while the costs of treatment are increasing, they pale in comparison with the costs associated with the lost contributions and productivity of patients and their caregivers.
According to recent studies (Milken 2007), the combined cost of caregivers’ unpaid labour and the lost productivity of those suffering chronic degenerative conditions outweighed treatment expenditures FOUR FOLD in the U.S. during 2003!
By focusing solely on treatment costs, strategies for short term cost cutting such as health care rationing have little effect. Why? Such strategies merely focus on “managing” degenerative disease rather than rehabilitation, which would reduce the devastating costs of lost productivity.
Fortunately, solutions are in sight.
Bio-technology, by creating therapies that employ stem cells found in one’s own body, will be able to treat degenerative disease and restore damaged and aged tissues, cells and organs.
Caution is warranted, however. While stem cell therapies have the potential to transform health care and the features of aging, as we know them, overly optimistic promises – too much, too fast – may impede their adoption.
The two public forums being held in Calgary and Edmonton are designed to address the realities underlying these technologies, identify impediments to their commercialization and contribute to the health and the economy of Alberta.
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The Forums in Calgary and Edmonton will be broadcast live on the internet
Calgary November 25: http://www.abctech.ca/stem-cell-therapies-calgary-november-25/?id=136
Edmonton November 26: http://www.abctech.ca/stem-cell-therapies-edmonton-november-26/?id=136