A newly published study in the New England Journal of Medicine found side effects some doctors called "absolutely devastating" when cells from aborted fetuses were transplanted into the brains of Parkinsons patients.

Parkinsons is a degenerative condition causing tremors, stiffness, and loss of balance. The study found that patients showed little or no benefit from the fetal cell transplants. Worse than the disappointment of the poor positive effects were the side effects experienced by about 15 percent of patients. Doctors called these side effects "devastating" and "a real nightmare."

Dr. Paul E. Greene described the side effects thus: the patients "chew constantly, their fingers go up and down, their wrists flex and distend." He added that patients "writhe and twist, jerk their heads, fling their arms about." Greene reported that one patient suffered side effects so severe that he could no longer eat and had to have a feeding tube put in. Another patient suffered the side effects intermittently and unpredictably. His speech became unintelligible when the side effects started. Greene found the effects so terrible that he took a firm position: "No more fetal transplants." Some researchers say that the results of this study were so unexpected and disastrous that no more fetal tissue transplants should be done on humans until more animal studies are done.

Researchers said that the fetal tissue grew too rapidly and released a chemical causing the dismaying side effects.

The worst side effects were seen in the youngest patients, who had the most mild Parkinsons symptoms to begin with.

The researchers were unable to control the side effects. Once the cells are injected, they can not be killed or removed.

The research involved forty long-term Parkinsons patients. All had four small holes drilled in their skulls, but only the experimental group had the fetal cells injected into their brains with long needles. Six patients who had been enrolled in the study but who had not yet undergone surgery decided to back out on the advice of the researchers.

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