Support the American trials of a drug which the doctors believe could produce a cure for Crohn's. The support could be in the form of UK based complementary research, trials in the UK or/and medical specialists assistance.
Why is this important?
There are currently 115,000 people living with the condition in the UK.
Crohn's disease can affect people of all ages, including children. However, most cases first develop between the ages of 16 and 30. The number of teenagers with Crohn’s disease has jumped more than 300 per cent in the last 10 years because of junk food and the overuse of antibiotics.
According to figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre, some 4,937 16 to 29-year-olds were admitted for treatment in England between 2003 and 2004, but last year the figure rose to 19,405.
People with Crohn's disease can experience periods of severe symptoms followed by periods of remission that can last for weeks or years. The symptoms of Crohn's disease depend on where the disease occurs in the bowel and its severity. In general symptoms can include:
Chronic diarrhoea, often bloody and containing mucus or pus
Weight loss
Fever, abdominal pain and tenderness
Feeling of a mass or fullness in the abdomen
Rectal bleeding
This research is based on the same approach as the cure found for smallpox. Edward Jenner introduced a new term to the language when he ‘vaccinated’ (Latin vacca, cow) a boy in 1796 with matter taken from a cowpox lesion on a milkmaid’s hand. Jenner’s technique, in which he introduced a weaker viral type into the human body, was much less risky than the hitherto inoculations of Variola major.
A set of similar circumstances has again led the medical profession to discover an immune system in cows and the research and trials in America and Israel are based on this finding.
How it will be delivered