Gina and Wade join The Doctors to share about how their daughter Gracie reacted to stem cell treatment for autism in the Duke University study.
Video Transcript:
– Let’s bring parents, Gina and Wade into the discussion now, whose daughter was part of the same clinical trial at Duke, but had a totally different experience. Tell us, how were things before your daughter received the stem cell treatment? – So Gracie started showing signs of autism around 18 months old and by two years of age, she had the diagnosis of autism. – Yeah, what we saw was, you know, obviously the hand flapping, nonverbal, confrontational, agitation. – [Gina] Tantrums.
– [Wade] Definitely tantrums. I mean, tantrums so bad that it would scare her own sister. – It really affected everyday life until we got the email from the company that we banked her cord blood with saying that there was this study, at Duke with the stem cells and we got her enrolled. – Well, you’ve, you’ve been through so, so much. Let’s, let’s take a look at Gracie before she had a stem cell infusion.
(Gracie babbling) (mattress squeaking) – [Gina] Blow! – [Wade] Blow! – [Gina] Blow your candles! – [Wade] Blow your candles! Okay.
– [Gina] Ready? I’ll help you. One, two, Gracie look! (yelling) (music playing in the background) (yelling) – Such a beautiful – [Ish] Right? – young lady.
– Adorable. Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s hard to understand, right? I come into this world and I don’t understand it and it scares me. And there’s a lot of things about this world that irritate me and I can’t tell you how that is.
I can’t communicate to mom or dad, right? And the way I communicate it to you, it just frustrates everybody. And so it’s just, it’s just hard all the way around. Now, what were Gracie’s results? Really, really curious about this.
Following her infusion, how did she do? – Well, interestingly for us, about the six month period, you saw an incredibly marked improvement. I mean, robust improvement in all, you know, verbal skills, socialization, you know, everything that, you know, the hand flapping, all of this really subsided. – Yeah. – And you could tell that she was, you know, it was almost a big, you know, it was a hyper light speed improvement and all of the symptoms are these, the underlying symptoms of autism.
– On a scale of one to 10, we probably rate it at eight or nine, her improvement. It was pretty remarkable. – [Ish] That’s incredible. – On that note, let’s, let’s meet Gracie. – [Gina] Okay.
– [Wade] Come on. – [Hosts Together] Hi Gracie. – Hi. – [Host] You’re on TV, how does that feel? – It feels great!
– How are things going these days for you? – It’s going really good. I’m in seventh grade now I’m getting a lot of A’s and B’s, and uh, I, I love school. – You know, Gracie, it’s so nice to meet you and you’re thriving and smiling and we’re so happy for you, and at the same time, Ashley and, and Rich. – [Ish] Yeah.
– You know, this, this may be bittersweet. – It is. – Obviously you’re, you’re happy for them, but. – Oh, absolutely. It’s an amazing story.
I’m so thrilled for her. – Well, you share so many bonds, similar experience, that we, we sympathize with you. And unfortunately it’s, it’s the name of the game that it’s, it’s unpredictable.
– Well, that’s, that’s where we are in the research, right? We can’t, we can’t predict with any reasonable amount of intelligence what’s going to happen from case to case.
– [Host] Every case is different. – That’s the hard part. – That’s why they call it a clinical trial. – Yep..
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