Ailing President George W. Bush to undergo stem cell therapy in London

Daughter Jenna donates cells in hopes of curing his deadly disease

CHRISTOPHER THOMAS SCOTT London Correspondent, World Press International August 9, 2016

British authorities, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, greeted a gravely ill George W. Bush, aged 70, as he arrived on a hospital gurney to a subdued gathering at Heathrow International Airport. Bush suffers from Guillain-Barré (ghee-yan bah-ray) Syndrome (GBS), an immune system disorder that mercilessly attacks the body's nervous system. In its severe form, it causes paralysis of the legs, arms, breathing muscles and face. GBS affects thousands of Americans every year. In acute cases such as Mr. Bush's, the pulmonary complications can be deadly.

Bush's sickness came on suddenly after suffering a bout of flu at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. As his condition worsened, family members consulted with specialists at Washington's newly rebuilt Walter Reed Medical Center. Within hours, he was rushed to London on a specially equipped plane staffed with medical personnel. He entered the prestigious King's College Stem Cell Therapy Institute, where treatments for autoimmune diseases such as type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and GBS show great promise.

A Grim Anniversary

The news comes exactly fifteen years after Bush's controversial proclamations on embryonic stem cell research. From his Texas ranch on 9 August 2001, he announced that from that day forward, not a single dollar from the $28 billion budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) could be used to make new embryonic stem cell lines (some funding was still possible for research with a handful of pre-existing embryonic cell lines).