To buoy up the spirits of the disability community,
scientists have dragged out the rats again.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins released a report of 15
rats that were paralyzed and given stem cells to test
for a cure of spinal-cord injuries. Twelve of the 15
walked sufficiently get on the news - again.
This testing of paralysis cures on rats and other
rodents has been going on for over a decade. The
disability community has become bored with these
so-called breakthroughs, because researchers also
usually discover the cure for rats would seriously harm
or kill humans.
The research team at Johns Hopkins admitted the
paralysis was chemically induced. The animal-cruelty
folks had a fit about breaking a rat's spine to help
spinal cord injury research. Too bad. If they had used
rats with true spinal cord injuries, the test results
might be believable.
I'm not saying that spinal cord injury research is
completely bogus. But the disability community is more
interested in a real return of bodily functions, skin
and nerve sensitivity, breathing without a ventilator
and other serious results of spinal cord injuries than
in just walking, which is what the research is mostly
about.
I would rather have my bodily functions and skin and
nerve sensitivity return than my ability to walk. Not
that I wouldn't welcome walking again, but the other
functions have a greater impact on my health.
Christopher Reeve, the late actor who was paralyzed,
was obsessed with finding a cure to enable him to walk
again. He rarely mentioned the other functions, as if
they would return automatically if he regained upright
mobility. Not so.
When I became disabled and wheelchair-bound, it was
because of surgery on my spinal cord involving the
scraping of the cord itself to remove a spider-web-like
tumor. I have a mishmash of areas from the waist down
that work and don't work. I can raise my right leg but
cannot move my foot. I can feel pain from injuries below
the epidermis but feel nothing from a pin-prick.
I was taught to walk with braces and a walker, but I
quickly gave it up because of painful bursitis in both
hips, along with extreme pain in my shoulders from
carrying my body weight and the weight of the steel
braces.
It's this kind of aggravation the spinal cord injury
community wants to be relieved of. If spinal cord injury
researchers would take a poll of the wheelchair-users of
the world, they would find out just what kind of cures
we are hoping for. They would find that the ability to
walk would rank fifth or lower on the list of body
functions we miss the most.
Researchers should be working first on the
possibility of returning bladder and bowel functions.
After that, they might start working on a complete cure.
McKee, a wheelchair user, is a freelance writer
and producer. You can e-mail her at chairgrrl@chairgrrl.com.
