Special Announcement - Now Screening for FDA Approved Stem Cell Study
Dr. Mitchell Sheinkop has completed training and is credentialed for an FDA-approved stem cell clinical trial for knee arthritis. Our clinic is now screening patients for this trial. Contact us at 312-475-1893 for details. Click here to learn more.
A Short Course on COVID-19 Immunity and Testing

A Short Course on COVID-19 Immunity and Testing

Or: Why the Vice President “I tested negative” should wear a mask

Types of Testing for COVID-19 Immunity

There are two types of COVID-19 tests: molecular and serological. Molecular tests (PCR) look for the presence of a virus’s genetic material, showing that there is an active infection. Those are the tests that require a swab to be shoved through the back of your nose and into your throat to collect a specimen. While the Molecular PCR test has a higher rate of sensitivity than the serological, it will only show infection, not if the person has the IgG antibody. The IgG antibody is present after a person had the COVID-19 virus and successful fought off the virus, hopefully having immunity now. Serological tests (Rapid Antibody) look for antibodies to the virus in the blood, the presence of (IgG) which indicates there was an infection in the past. It will also show the (IgM) antibody which demonstrates the person is currently infected with the virus and fighting off the infection.

While the molecular tests (PCR) for COVID-19 have been around since the beginning of February, serological tests weren’t authorized until April 1. Many people see these tests as a way to prove immunity against the virus, allowing those who test positive and possess the IgG antibody “only” to resume their normal lives, free from the threat of contracting the virus again. We don’t yet know for sure that these antibodies confer immunity, nor for how long that immunity lasts if they do, but past history of SARS infections, people who possessed the antibody after successfully fighting off that infection had built up immunity for 2-3 years. Enough time until a vaccine is developed for COVID-19.

If a test identifies individuals who have the IgG antibody, it means they successfully fought off the virus and may have immunity if they were to come into contact with someone who has the COVID-19 virus, or when the virus comes back in the Fall.  Additionally, it will show who currently has it and if their body is fighting the virus off, the IgM marker.  IgG is the more important antibody class, since IgM secreting patients might not seroconvert. IgG positive patients doesn’t mean they can’t be reinfected- the jury is still out on that one. 

COVID-19 and Comparative Religion

On a lighter note, long ago at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign, once I had been accepted to Medical School, after having completed a very intense, mandatory, at the time premed curriculum, I decided to seek an education and, took a course, in Comparative Religions. Most immigrants and their first-generation American children grew up in relatively closed communities; it was time for me to see the world. Below is a teaching that might have, or could have, come from that course:

When it comes to the prohibition of eating bats, it seems the Torah repeats the prohibition not just once but twice. Regarding the Hebrew word tinshames (Leviticus, 11:18), Rashi says “it resembles a mouse and flies about at night.” Clearly, a bat.

Then, just one verse later, the Bible prohibits the consumption of an atalef, which is also translated as bat. Is this a biblical warning against the dangers of eating these creatures?

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Quarantine and Isolation for Infectious Diseases

Quarantine and Isolation for Infectious Diseases

quarantine-infectious-disease

National Library of Medicine Quarantine signs, for scarlet fever and other diseases, were a familiar sight during the first half of the last century.

Last week, my Blog focused on Social Distancing; not for the Coronavirus but that was how we survived the annual Polio Epidemics prior to Salk and Sabin. On Tuesday night, by chance, Public Television devoted an hour to the subject I had featured in my Blog. I have been trying to explain to my children and grandchildren what we are living through is nothing new, we will get through it.  Since our offices are basically shut down for an unknown period, I started leafing through an old photo album and, was reminded.   

Quarantine and Isolation for Infectious Diseases

When I was in elementary school I had scarlet fever and was confined to my bed for an entire month. A brightly colored quarantine sign was nailed to our apartment on Division and Kedzie in Humboldt Park, Chicago. This would let everyone in the neighborhood know not to go inside until the sign was removed. My brother and father moved in with my mother’s parents on Western and Potomac, while my mother looked after and nursed me. Incidentally, no television in our home so it was mostly keep looking out the window, listening to radio or coloring and connecting dots.  Since there was no Penicillin for childhood diseases, it seemed as if there was always a sign on someone’s house when I was growing up in the 1940s.

While the Coronavirus may grab more headlines today, in addition to Polio, the best known and most dreaded illness was streptococcal infection leading to  scarlet fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease. Simply hearing the name of these diseases, and knowing that they were present in the community, was enough to strike fear into the hearts of those living in the post war United States and Europe. These diseases, even when not deadly, caused large amounts of suffering to those infected. In the worst cases, all of a family’s children were killed in a matter of a week or two. Indeed, up until early in the 20th century, scarlet fever was a common condition among children. The disease was so common that it was a central part of the popular children’s tale, The Velveteen Rabbit, written by Margery Williams in 1922.

Below are several abstracts from the Journal of The American Medical Association:

Article

June 11, 1938

SCARLET FEVER QUARANTINE

JAMA. 1938;110(24):2012. doi:10.1001/jama.1938.02790240036015

Article

March 8, 1947

PENICILLIN FOR SCARLET FEVER

ARCHIBALD L. HOYNE, M.D.ROWINE HAYES BROWN, M.D.

Author Affiliations

JAMA. 1947;133(10):661-663. doi:10.1001/jama.1947.02880100005002

The Quarantine, Isolation and Social Distancing worked for me then when penicillin was not yet readily available and Polio vaccine was still in the future. Now we not only have vaccines and antibiotics, we have stem cells.

In my case in the 1940s, I survived but my next complication of preantibiotic Scarlet Fever after the Quarantine were four weeks in the hospital with acute Glomerular Nephritis, a rare complication called Bright’s Disease. I survived that Isolation too and here we are ???? years later, in spite of all.

  I will look forward to consulting with you for your arthritic problems in the not too distant future.  Call (312) 475-1893 to schedule an appointment

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On Social Distancing and the Developing Stem Cell Trials for COVID-19 Patients

On Social Distancing and the Developing Stem Cell Trials for COVID-19 Patients

Every July 4th through Labor Day, from 1945 until 1954, my family would pack up the car and head off to spend the summer in Glenn, Michigan, several blocks from the lake. We lived in Humboldt Park on Division Street in Chicago. It was a third floor, one-bedroom apartment with a den. Air conditioning was not yet readily available.  My brother and I shared the pull-out couch in the den. My father would drive out past the Gary Works Steel mills to Glenn each Friday night and return home on Sunday night so he wouldn’t miss work. He was a self-employed cabinet maker, having learned both his trade and the English language after fleeing Poland before WW2. He would take his yearly two-week vacation and spend it in the rented “cottage” ($50 for six weeks) equipped with an outhouse and a real ice box. The ice man came with a block twice a week. As there were no interstate highways or toll roads at the time, the drive would take 3 to 4 hours each way.

Social Distancing to Prevent the Spread of Illness

In medical school while studying infectious disease, I learned that the Summer 1952 Polio Epidemic had afflicted 57,628 Americans resulting in 3,145 deaths. It was only then when I realized the reason behind our yearly migration for Social Distancing. My family was avoiding the overcrowding that resulted in the spread of Polio, although, until Salk and Sabin, no one knew how. As an Orthopedic Surgeon at Children’s Memorial Hospital between 1974 to 1983, there were still several iron lungs in use to support children with respiratory distress, of varying causation, for prolonged periods. In the present COVID-19 Pandemic, the means of disease transfer is well understood. What remains to be done is the development of a treatment and a vaccination rendering immunity.

I share the following document from The Personalized Stem Cell group with whom I am an investigator for arthritis. I thought you would appreciate the government and White House briefings (two calls already with VP Task Force): 

  • We are manufacturing large quantities of allogeneic donor MSCs for treatment of COVID-19 patients
  • Have approval of IRB for protocol
  • Filing with FDA next week for emergency IND
  • Attached draft of protocol justification manuscript

“Situation • The government has asked private biopharmaceutical companies to step up • Many Americans will die or have long term disability from COVID-19 • Critical we find treatments to keep people off ventilators and reduce mortality • PSC has 17 years of stem cell experience and has deployable resources to treat COVID-19 patients, but needs capital and fast track regulatory access

Why Stem Cell Therapy for COVID-19*

How patients die

  • Massive inflammation by the body’s over-reaction to the viral invasion
  • Lung inflammation prevents oxygen getting to the bloodstream
  • Many patients will die even if a ventilator is available

Stem cell therapy – Scientific published evidence*

  • Reduce lung damage and inflammation
  • Improve oxygen supply to the body
  • Repair damaged lung and prevent scar tissue
  • Produce natural antibiotics and antivirals
  • Clear edema and fluid from the lung

How Effective – Scientific Published Evidence*

  • Reduce death loss by 50%-90%
  • Reduce days in the ICU
  • Reduce need for ventilator
  • Clinical data that stem cells work against COVID-19 and other viral diseases
  • Over 20 clinical studies started in China in just the last 60 days with early published striking results

How Safe – Scientific Published Evidence*

  • Thousands of patients safely treated with stem cells in hundreds of clinical trials for a variety of diseases with very limited side effects
  • Excellent published safety records
  • Stem cells approved for many clinical uses in Europe, Canada, Korea, Japan, and Australia

*see accompanying manuscript on stem cells”

I will post the manuscript in my next blog post. To learn more, call (312) 475-1893. You may email about stem cells for COVID-19 at me at [email protected].

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Could Stem Cells Help Coronavirus infections?

Could Stem Cells Help Coronavirus infections?

On Thursday, a report appeared in the South China Morning Post that reviewed the case of an elderly woman in an Intensive Care Unit in China. She had been there for two weeks and her organs were clearly failing, so the Chinese doctors got approval to use stem cells that had been culture expanded in the lab. After the first two treatments and within days she was able to get out of bed; and then after the third injection, she was able to leave the ICU and was found to be COVID-19  (Coronavirus) negative.

Another study is underway in Hunan province using similar stem cells and the doctors there were quoted as observing similar results. All of the doctors are saying that it’s time to accelerate the stem cell approach in the care of critically ill patients. These are not the same Stem Cells as your Chiropractor or Naturopath advertises; absolutely not, don’t be misled. Per the report from China, the type of cells used in the first patient were isolated from umbilical cords and then grown in the lab. These cells in China were confirmed as highly viable and functional as this was tissue taken from the OB Ward directly into the lab to be isolated and grown. It was not the non-viable tissue being sold and promoted as umbilical cord-derived “stem cells” here in the US. Those Chiropractic products, based on the research now from many labs, actually contain dead and non-functional stem cells.

How do the Stem Cells work in the face of a Coronavirus infection? What often kills people with the flu is the massive inflammatory reaction in the lungs. This causes swelling and reduces the ability of the lungs to oxygenate tissues. Living stem cells reduce and eliminate inflammation. In addition, stem cells have been shown to be antibacterial and anti-viral. For those who meet the inclusion criteria allowing participation in our FDA Approved Personalized Stem Cell Trial for knee arthritis, there is an option for cell storage. Not only will we use your Adipose Derived Stem cells now for treatment of an arthritic knee, PSC is offering a storage option for future use of those stem cells for anyone of a number of inflammatory conditions.

To learn more, visit my website at www.sheinkopmd.com. The Personalized Stem Cell website is www.personalizedstemcells.com. To schedule an office visit call (312) 475-1893. For those wherein I conclude an arthritic affliction is better managed by bone marrow concentrate containing stem cells, we are now offering a storage option as well.

Call to Learn More

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