Source: Mile High News

Blind toddler could gain sight after overseas operation           

Hallie Kemp rummaged around in her play kitchen, offering a tiny toy spatula from the sink overflowing with miniature pots and pans.

"Hallie's spatula!" the 2-year-old announced proudly.

Hallie loves playing with toys that make noise, light up or have interesting textures, and when she hears a song, she can't help but bob and dance along.

Music, light and texture are Hallie's major learning tools. The toddler is legally blind because of an underdeveloped optic nerve and can only see some light from her peripheral vision.

Although her parents, Katie and Adam Kemp, have started labeling Hallie's favorite things in Braille, the couple hopes one day Hallie won't have to rely on touch and hearing to live her life. One trip to Thailand for stem cell therapy could improve Hallie's sight enough to look her parents in the eyes or one day even drive to her high school homecoming dance.

Source: The Ledger     

See Gryphon's blog to see how he is getting along with the treatment.

Even with the recent change in policy concerning stem cell therapy in the United States, two Californian families have their sights set on China as they seek treatment for their children’s cerebral palsy. Both Gryphon Klomp, who can not walk or hold a spoon, and Brooke Schmidt-Jordan’s parents are hoping that the experience of doctor’s abroad will help improve the quality of life for their two-year-olds.

“I’m very frustrated that it took Obama getting into office to even look at stem cell treatments,” Jennifer Schmidt said. “The United States is 20 years behind China.”

As stem cell treatments were put on ice by the Bush administration, doctors abroad, including those at the Beike Biotechnology partner hospital in Hangzhou, China, have pushed the science to new heights. The first use of Beike stem cells came in 2001. With clinical trials still needed in the United States the families are not willing to wait while their children suffer.

Source: Breaking News

In a story as sweet as the drinks she is peddling, each cup 8-year-old Brianna Bermudez sells from her lemonade stand goes to raise money for her brother’s stem cell treatment in a Beike Biotechnology partnered hospital in China.

“I just made it for him because he needed an operation,” Bermudez said.
 
Bermudez’s brother, 8-month-old Bryce Mastrototaro, has Optic Nerve Hypoplasia (ONH) and is currently rendered legally blind as his condition results in an underdeveloped optic nerve which interferes with transmission of visual signals to his brain.

Source: SUN-TIMES NEWS GROUP

By WYNN KOEBEL FOSTER

If seeing is believing, Elmwood Park residents Heather Pelletier and her 8-year-old daughter, Hayley, qualify as stem cells' most fervent converts. The stem cell treatments Hayley had are controversial. But the success she experienced is hard to discount.

Hayley had been legally blind since birth, afflicted with optic nerve hypoplasia, or ONH, a leading cause of blindness in children. Her optic nerves, which transmit visual signals from her eyes to her brain, were underdeveloped. She could see only light with her left eye, not much more with her right -- objects at 20 feet that a child with normal vision can see at 2,200 feet.

Last fall, Hayley, then a first-grader at Salt Creek Primary School in Elmhurst, was learning to walk with a cane and to read Braille. Doctors told Peletier no medications or treatments were available for her daughter's condition. Then, in August, Pelletier stumbled onto the Web site for the Schepens Eye Research Institute at Harvard University.