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LEX 18 Health Watch Reporter Lisa Kaplan
Lexington, KY

Salyersville, KY. Imagine losing your ability to speak or eat. Would you travel to the other side of the globe for a chance at restoring those abilities?

An Eastern Kentucky man is preparing for a trip to China to receive a controversial treatment.

Roger Gullett is the Circuit Court Clerk for Magoffin County. He goes to work most afternoons of the week but can't communicate the way he used to.

Roger has Lou Gehrig's Disease, or ALS.

"He's not been able to talk for a little over a year now and he's not been able to eat or drink anything by mouth since March of 2004," said wife Sandy Gullett.

A year ago, Roger was diagnosed with ALS, a progressive disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing the body to lose muscle control. His wife was devastated.

"We had some scary times, there were times Roger and I didn't think he was going to live through it," Sandy said.

But then, a ray of hope. The Gulletts learned of an experimental treatment.

A doctor in China, Dr. Huang Hongyun, is injecting stem cells into the brains and spines of ALS and paralyzed patients, to repair nerves.

It's a treatment they can't get in the U.S. because it involves abortion. The stem cells are taken from aborted fetuses, not easy for the Gulletts to accept.

"My husband and I don't believe in abortion.... We feel like that this is a way God has of taking something bad and making something good out of it, because China does it for other reasons besides research," Sandy said.

Dr. Hongyun isn't promising a cure, but the Gulletts were told 77% of patients improve. One they know of, regained his ability to speak after three days.

How long the results will last is anyone's guess.

Roger, talking through a computer, is hopeful it will work for him.

"I will be able to talk and eat," he said.

"I know in my heart and my mind that he is going to talk again," said Sandy.

As for the rest of Roger's body, his muscles are weakening. He uses a breathing machine at night to spare those muscles.

The procedure does have critics. The surgery is being performed without the backup of extensive clinical trials.

"My concerns are that we don't know the safety or effectiveness of these cells and I'm particularly concerned with the possibility it is unsafe," said Dr. Harley Korblum, Director of Neural Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

But that doesn't concern the Gulletts, nor the expense.

The operation costs $20,000, money the Gulletts have thanks to an outpouring of donations from across Kentucky.

"If it doesn't work, that means it just wasn't God's plan and we'll just take each day as we have been and keep praying," Sandy said.

The Gulletts have collected more than $30,000 in donations. That's the minimum they were told they'd need for their trip to China.

They leave for Beijing on April 17th, Roger's 55th birthday. They hope that's a good sign.