Launch HN: Anja Health (YC W22) – Freezing stem cells at birth for future health - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30305959 - Feb 2022 (147 comments)
(I wouldn't normally link to a Launch HN like that but this topic is so unusual and specific that I figure it counts as interesting.)
> plancentas are so valuable that physicians - especially in Europe - sometimes prefer to take them for themselves to sell to cosmetics research for ~$50k
I wonder if there's a hybrid approach where you could share the placenta/umbilical cord w/other companies and get free storage.
Yes, education I'd say is in the top 10 or 50. But how can you possibly fill out the top 1000 without including umbilical cord stem cells?
Just a few things off the top of my head.
I would actually argue that the chances of using it are actually much higher & it would make the top 1000 options in terms of expected ROI. Using type 1 diabetes as an example:
By age 18, approximately 1/300 people in the US develop type 1 diabetes
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/240160#1 -> here's an article demonstrating how cord blood has successfully reversed type 1 diabetes
and that's just for diabetes. Consider the chances and corresponding research around cerebral palsy, hair loss, heart failure, liver disease, cancers, and more that stem cells - and specifically cord blood stem cells - have been successfully used for.
NHS hospital sells placentas for cosmetic use
https://web.archive.org/web/20210217162113/https://www.teleg...
Not 50k a pop, but shows that it does happen.
No, you found one article.
> Not 50k a pop, but shows that it does happen.
It shows it did happen, 13 years ago.
Compare with the claims made by Anjahealth's CEO.
(1) an 'NHS hospital in the UK' is not 'doctors in the EU', (2) it is universally condemned, (3) the beneficiary is apparently a US company (4) Consent was obtained but for different reasons (medical research), which put the hospital in hot water, as it should. (5) the amount is nowhere near the one claimed. (6) it is a donation, clearly still a quid-pro-quo. (7) this is outrageous enough that it made the newspaper. (8) 2008.
To use this in a commercial setting, to pretend it's an ongoing and common thing and that doctors in the EU profit from this is absolutely disgusting. Besides that I sincerely hope that that hospital had the book thrown at it, and suspect the company is at fault and not the hospital.
Accusations like that against doctors should not be made lightly, especially not for your own personal financial gain.
Finally: placentas are used for good research, they are a rich source of stem cells and hard to come by proteins, some hospitals do collect them for this purpose (as the hospital in the article pretended to do), and by making the argument that they are mostly used for cosmetics manufacture it harms the main reason hospitals will pass them on: to help with various medical research programs, which the company is essentially in competition with.
It's a straight up case of FUD with unsupported accusations of insane profits on unethical behavior against a group of people that have taken a pretty expensive oath as well as operating under strict regulations.
edit: some more research later:
It appears the hospital was unaware of what the company did:
" She added: "We have spoken to Sigma-Aldrich already and asked them to revise the consent form so it is more explicit. We partook in the scheme on the understanding that the placentas would be used for medical research."
She added mothers were given information about the process during ante-natal care and placentas were only ever taken with their consent.
She added: "We do receive a donation for this service, but we are not paid for it as such. The distinction is that even if we didn't receive a donation, we would still offer mothers the opportunity to donate their placentas for research, rather than have them incinerated."
Sigma-Aldrich, which has a facility in Fancy Road, Poole, denied its human placental by-products are used in the manufacture of any cosmetic products, but a spokesman admitted they may be used in their development and testing. "
https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/2279703.placenta-ange...
Based on the information available the hospital made yet another questionable call here, revising the consent form isn't the solution, the solution is to stop working with this company because it clearly can't be trusted.
> Dr. Kristal pointed out, with slight hesitancy, that research hospitals could have a financial motive to keeping women's placentas given that "a lot of bigger hospitals have—or, at least, had—contracts with pharmaceutical and cosmetic houses to sell the placentas." The hospitals I spoke with denied this allegation, but it's perhaps worth noting that Baylor Hospitals—which is notorious for refusing to let moms take home their placentas—is also part of a national study to evaluate the efficacy of using cells derived from human placenta to treat Crohn's disease.
Or another report:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/8273...
> One of the most widely used products for lower extremity wounds, Lantis said, is EpiFix, which is made by MiMedx. It is synthesized from "dehydrated human amnion/chorion membrane" -- placental material -- according to the company's website. In 2013, the FDA warned the company about marketing the product without approval, which the firm eventually obtained.
> If women knew more about the money, power, and scandal behind their donations, they might see donation differently, Turner said.
> "What if women were given the full account, that some biobank is going to acquire it, process it, assign it value, and then it's going to be marked up and sold again," Turner said. "Some women might think twice."
These are just in the first page of google results. It's shady but not exactly illegal (apparently) to ask mothers on the operating table to sign off on "donating" their placentas.
If such donations are regularly solicited, I don't find it that surprising that hospitals profit off of them one way or another. I do agree the CEO should back up her claims.