Dr. Burt does not get stem cells from "throw away parts" as stated in one of these blogs. He injects the patient with a drug which stimulates patient's bone marrow to produce more stem cells. Then patient receives a few days of chemo (Cytoxin?) which kills off the immune system. Patient is in absolutely sterile surroundings when this happens. The previously harvested stemcells are then reinfused into him. These stemcells immediately begin building a new immune system that doesn't have the disease fighting cells which were attacking patient's own tissue. My son had this treatment for a very malignant form of CIDP in Feb/Mar '10. Myelin is a fatty substance which lines & insulates the nerves, and it grows back very fast. It's only the nerves themselves which grow back slowly. In son's case he could not walk, use his hands, & was beginning to have trouble breathing & with his eyesight when he went to Northwestern. But he had gotten so sick so fast that most of the damage was deMyelination, rather than axonal nerve damage. After the stem cell transplant, within 30 days his immune counts were back to normal, within 6 weeks he was walking haltingly & could feed himself. Within 1 year he had recovered all function. He is now nearly 5 years post transplant, during which he's had to use no medication because there's no disease. He takes no immunosuppressants because the stemcells were from his own body, not a foreign bone marrow donor. This treatment & Dr. Burt was a miracle. The negative tales I see on this blog are just fiction. Son was there, son went through it, son came out the other side a well man.