WHEN the chance for surgery came, George Doeschner seized it. Sure, there
were risks. The operation, part of a pioneering American clinical trial, would
involve drilling holes in his skull and injecting nerve cells from aborted
fetuses into his brain. But after more than a decade of Parkinson’s disease, his
tremors were getting bad. The fetal cells were never going to cure Doeschner,
but they might ease his symptoms.
And so they did. Yet as the tremors disappeared, Doeschner’s left arm began
to jerk uncontrollably. Four other patients suffered similar side effects.
Suddenly, fetal tissue transplantation—one of the most promising…
