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Horizon

Thu 29 Sep, 9:00 pm - 9:50 pm  50mins

The Doctor Who Makes People Walk Again

Horizon investigates the controversial work of Dr Huang Hongyun - the doctor who claims he can make people walk again. Using a technique that would be banned in the west, Huang takes cells from aborted foetuses and injects them into the brains and spines of patients with spinal injuries and disease. Despite no clear clinical evidence the desperate and dying are travelling from all over the western world to Huang's clinic in search of a miracle.

The film follows Vic Washby and his family as they embark on a desperate journey to help Vic stay alive. Vic has motor neurone disease and is now in a wheelchair. He is travelling to China in the hope that Dr Huang can stabilise his condition and reverse many of the functions he has lost to the disease.

In the last four years Dr Huang has treated over 700 patients and his waiting list now stretches to the end of 2006. His treatment is based on groundbreaking research pioneered in the UK but some claim Huang is racing ahead too quickly. Scientists and neurosurgeons point to a large gap in the provision of any clinical evidence or empirical data to back up his claims. They believe that Dr Huang is forging ahead without fully calculating the potential risks to his patients. [S]

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Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/horizon