Bradley-Bass bill aids battle with Type 1 diabetes

By Courtney Paquette

Special to The Union Leader

October 16, 2004

WASHINGTON -- With the Walk for Diabetes today in Portsmouth, the search for a cure for the more than a million Americans who have Type 1 diabetes comes into focus.

Last week, the search got a boost when the House and Senate passed a bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., and Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., that would remove some of the barriers to research on islet cell transplantations, a procedure that, if successful, would free Type 1 diabetics of insulin injections.

The problem, addressed by the bill, was that the procurement of islet cells, which are obtained from a donor pancreas, was not a qualifying procedure under organ procurement laws, as islet cell transplantation was classified as an experimental procedure.

BASS

BRADLEY

The legislation, the Pancreatic Islet Cell Transplantation Act of 2004, removed that block by making islet cell transplantation research a qualifying procedure.

The act provides for annual review by an oversight committee from the National Institutes of Health that will assess, among other things, the adequacy of federal funding and ways to increase the supply of islet cells.

Bradley said the issue took on new importance for him after a visit in April to McKelvie Middle School in Bedford, where he said a dozen children with Type 1 diabetes spoke about the difficulties of living with the disease.

"It just brought home to me how important pancreatic islet cell research is in order to give us opportunities to cure these debilitating diseases," said Bradley.

Bass, in a press release, said, "This breakthrough medical research deserves every opportunity to successfully treat patients afflicted with diabetes. It has the potential to improve and save lives."

In Type 1 Diabetes, the immune system destroys the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas. According to the Mayo Clinic Web site, in pancreatic islet cell transplantation researchers remove islets from the pancreas of a deceased donor.

A transplant for a 154 pound person requires one million islets, the amount in two pancreases. Islets are injected into the liver via a catheter, because the cells grow well in the liver and the liver can perform as a back-up pancreas to produce insulin.

The entire procedure can be done with a local anesthesia and takes less than an hour. A spokesperson for the National Institutes of Health would not comment on why there were barriers to this procedure and what the dangers were with islet cell transplantation, but according to the institute's Web site, the dangers include anemia, nerve damage, meningitis and vulnerability to infection.

The transplantation act went to the White House Oct. 13 but the President has not signed it, according to a spokesman in the press office.

The White House spokesman said he did not know when the President would sign it.

Courtney Paquette is an intern with the Boston University Washington News Service.

Copyright © 2004 The New Hampshire Union Leader

This article posted November 15, 2004.