Private Cord Blood Banking Popular

A Medical News Today article discusses the constantly-raging controversy of whether umbilical cord blood should be banked privately for individual use or donated freely to more publicly-accessible cord blood storage facilities.

The article itself is an interesting summary of the arguments on both sides, slanted a bit toward advocacy of non-individual banking. However, the most interesting gem in the piece was this comment:
"These promises of cures have had a definite effect: 'More than 600,000 people around the world have already deposited cord blood in private blood banks,' explained Professor Willem E. Fibbe from Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands at the 12th Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA), held in Vienna from June 7 to 10. 'That is a substantially larger number than have contributed to public donor stem cell banks.'"

Although the popularity of private umbilical cord blood banking has been obvious for some time, it was interesting to find that the number of depositors opting for individual paid storage outnumbers free donations so significantly.

One could read this as evidence that the alleged cost-prohibitiveness of private storage is over-stated by critics of private cord blood banks. Alternatively, one could argue that the numbers simply underline the need for greater awareness of donation options.

In any case, it's a fascinating observation and you can find it in this article.