Reading the title, I assumed James' donation was a one-time thing and scientists had sequenced something in his blood which was later used for the babies he'd saved, but no, he gave blood almost 1200 times in his life. Absolutely incredible. He was 81 the last time he donated blood.
>According to Lifeblood, 17% of Australian women who become pregnant end up needing anti-D injections — and most of the country's supply comes from a pool of less than 200 regular plasma donors.
This was the most shocking part of this article though. I've never heard of "anti-D" but it sounds incredibly needed and that's a very small supply.
D is another name, as the article explains, for Rh (Rhesus) factor. Since some fetal blood ends up in the maternal circulation during birth, an Rh-positive baby with an Rh-negative mother will trigger mom’s immune system to make anti-Rh antibodies, which causes problems for any future Rh-positive babies. Giving mom anti-Rh antibodies immediately after delivery scavenges all those Rh antigens from mom’s blood before her immune system can react. She has to repeat this for every Rh-positive birth.
There's more information in one of the linked articles [1]. Apparently some very small percentage of Rh-negative people have an enzyme which allows them to accept Rh-positive blood; that's the "anti-D" factor which saves these lives.
How many millions of babies have died because of this? Humans truly are incredible that we were able to figure this out, and this guy is a hero for donating blood as often as he did. He needs to be memorialized.
Imagine saving 2000 lives by sitting down for 30 minutes with a coffee and biscuit.
What they don't say is whether these 200 donors constitute more or less than 100% of the clinical need for anti-D plasma.
If my contributions were that valuable, I'd wonder if it made sense to keep me on life support just to extract my blood every two weeks. But alas, blood donors in Australia must be 81 years or younger, so I guess the question is academic in this case.
> If my contributions were that valuable, I'd wonder if it made sense to keep me on life support just to extract my blood every two weeks.
It's a really interesting somewhat thought provoking idea. To some extent these people are valuable enough that turning them into blood factories after cerebral death is the more moral option?
> Imagine saving 2000 lives by sitting down for 30 minutes with a coffee and biscuit.
I tried doing it too but it's a lot more involved. I don't have this anti-D thing though. Just normal blood.
You need to go through an interview, a medical check and various forms.
Once I went through all that they told me I can't give any :(. Multiple sex partners, regular tattoos etc. I did want to and was prepared to do it regularly. I can see how they are having difficulty getting enough. But anyway I tried.
I wish they were better at screening blood so I could help.
Is it possible to keep only a,bone that has bone marrow that produces white cells that produce the antibody? It would be less creepy, but white cell maturation is not easy, so I guess there are many problems I don't imagine.
But there is also monoclonal antibodies for cancer, and this antibody production looks somewhat similar.
My dad has been donating regular blood and then plasma for decades. I used to do it frequently- apparently, I'm "CMV negative", which is good for babies.
In the US when I lived on the west coast there were dedicated blood centers where you could donate. I have O neg blood which I think gets given to infants, so they would often call me up and get me scheduled as soon as I was eligible after the waiting period between donations. I was sometimes sluggish about scheduling a donation, but still managed to go over 20 times in the few years I lived out there.
Then I moved to east coast, and there is basically none of that infrastructure, you have to find a mobile blood bank or be aware of some event or community site that sometimes hosts them. I'm bad at that kind of community awareness, so the upshot is I haven't donated once in the 15 years I've lived here. Always surprised by that since there are so many more people on the east coast, I'm not sure where all the blood is coming from since they are so bad about getting people to do regular donations.
Where at? Where I live in Pennsylvania, and not the most populated of areas, there are at least 3 groups open all the time for donations (two local Hospital systems and the regional Blood Bank). Plus, there are no less then three mobile blood drives at fire halls; schools; churches; civic centers (i.e. VFW; Lions; Elks, etc...); libraries; etc... seemingly every week. If you don't see signs, you often see it posted in grocery stores, libraries, anywhere a community billboard might be.
Valley forge area, but also up and down montgomery county, I've never seen a dedicated blood bank. If the hospitals are taking blood they aren't advertising that. The local Y has a mobile blood bank occasionally, but I've missed it every time. I never see blood donation ads anywhere except the Y (I would miss ones in churches and most community centers though).
Should they have paid him wages for all his time and effort?
On the one hand, people should get compensation for their labor, especially since he's probably saving the healthcare system from having to do more-expensive/less-effective interventions. On the other hand, being treated like an employee sucks, so maybe it's for the best.
Where I live, blood centers take the middle road by giving us rewards-points we can exchange for gift cards, but that adds the complication of having to manage gift cards.
> Despite making up just 4.2 per cent of the world's population, the United States accounts for around 70 per cent of all the source plasma in the world blood market, according to most analysts.
> As it stands, the only countries in the world that are entirely self-sufficient for immunoglobulin are those that offer to pay their plasma donors.
> In 2022-23, Australia imported $399.2 million worth of immunoglobulin to make up the shortfall in supplies, buying plasma products at what Mr Cahill calls "world-best prices".
There are lower hanging fruit. Last time I tried to give blood in the UK involved waiting 2 months for an appointment and a 3-hour round-trip. They turned me away for a medical reason that was mentioned on the application form.
So I drove home: the NHS are more strict than the DVLA.
The dark truth is that the kind of people who are desperate for that money are also much more likely to have tainted blood from illegal drugs, dirty needles, and STDs.
The bureaucracy plays it safe by just banning payment, even though people like James aren't in that risk category.
As a lifelong donor, 10+ gallons, I don't think we should be paid for blood. It takes just a lil bit of time. Banning payment avoids a ton of issues and overhead.
Downside is less people donate, but I don't think $10 would change that much.
I was hoping the article would clarify how it was determined that he had this specific abnormality. I've given blood before. Is this the kind of thing they check for and would have informed me if I had? Or do doctors have to go out of their way to check for it?
It's not at all clear why he produced such high quality antibodies, but one theory was the sheer quantity of transfusions he had to receive after a lung operation (something on the order of 7.4L of blood). They have no idea why he continued to produce them after, however.
From the link in the article: https://www.lifeblood.com.au/blood/learn-about-blood/plasma/... it sounds like they test people who are RH negative who give plasma. So if you know you are a RH negative man or woman past childbearing years you can donate plasma and ask. I've given plasma before and it wasn't mentioned but I'm RH+.
In my experience, yes. If you give blood, they will test it in all sorts of ways, and if you are identified as having an unusual helpful factor, they will reach out and encourage you to continue donating.
It's not the most important aspect of the story, but I wonder how they prevented infection or other harm from all those blood draws. Eventually, it seems the odds would catch up to him.
Some device that could take your blood in a closed system at home would be also ok. You put it on after waking up, it draws the blood, the blood container seals itself. It has your identifier of some sorts. So you just drop it off at a blood drop off point and go where ever you want.
IVs are, while not the most complicated skill a medical practitioner needs to learn, a tricky thing to get right. Too deep and you risk causing real damage, too shallow and you're not hitting the vein, wrong spot and you miss the vein, etc, etc.
And most people wouldn't be happy with a needle permanently tapped into their vein, so not really viable.
Readit News
>According to Lifeblood, 17% of Australian women who become pregnant end up needing anti-D injections — and most of the country's supply comes from a pool of less than 200 regular plasma donors.
This was the most shocking part of this article though. I've never heard of "anti-D" but it sounds incredibly needed and that's a very small supply.
[1] https://www.lifeblood.com.au/blood/learn-about-blood/plasma/...
What they don't say is whether these 200 donors constitute more or less than 100% of the clinical need for anti-D plasma.
If my contributions were that valuable, I'd wonder if it made sense to keep me on life support just to extract my blood every two weeks. But alas, blood donors in Australia must be 81 years or younger, so I guess the question is academic in this case.
> Once you’re 81 you must have donated in Australia in the last 5 years to remain eligible.
https://www.lifeblood.com.au/faq/eligibility/other/age?_gl=1....
(That’s the nastiest long URL I’ve ever seen. All I did was click the “find out more” link here: https://www.lifeblood.com.au/blood/eligibility/quiz )
Deleted Comment
It's a really interesting somewhat thought provoking idea. To some extent these people are valuable enough that turning them into blood factories after cerebral death is the more moral option?
I tried doing it too but it's a lot more involved. I don't have this anti-D thing though. Just normal blood.
You need to go through an interview, a medical check and various forms.
Once I went through all that they told me I can't give any :(. Multiple sex partners, regular tattoos etc. I did want to and was prepared to do it regularly. I can see how they are having difficulty getting enough. But anyway I tried.
I wish they were better at screening blood so I could help.
But there is also monoclonal antibodies for cancer, and this antibody production looks somewhat similar.
Then I moved to east coast, and there is basically none of that infrastructure, you have to find a mobile blood bank or be aware of some event or community site that sometimes hosts them. I'm bad at that kind of community awareness, so the upshot is I haven't donated once in the 15 years I've lived here. Always surprised by that since there are so many more people on the east coast, I'm not sure where all the blood is coming from since they are so bad about getting people to do regular donations.
On the one hand, people should get compensation for their labor, especially since he's probably saving the healthcare system from having to do more-expensive/less-effective interventions. On the other hand, being treated like an employee sucks, so maybe it's for the best.
Where I live, blood centers take the middle road by giving us rewards-points we can exchange for gift cards, but that adds the complication of having to manage gift cards.
> Despite making up just 4.2 per cent of the world's population, the United States accounts for around 70 per cent of all the source plasma in the world blood market, according to most analysts.
> As it stands, the only countries in the world that are entirely self-sufficient for immunoglobulin are those that offer to pay their plasma donors.
> In 2022-23, Australia imported $399.2 million worth of immunoglobulin to make up the shortfall in supplies, buying plasma products at what Mr Cahill calls "world-best prices".
So I drove home: the NHS are more strict than the DVLA.
This is something I find hard to agree with. I understand banning say selling of body parts (even your own). But blood / plasma?
The bureaucracy plays it safe by just banning payment, even though people like James aren't in that risk category.
Downside is less people donate, but I don't think $10 would change that much.
I do wish they'd expand the testing a bit. I think a lot of people would donate if it came with a metabolic panel, for example.
If you get blood panel results with a "donation", it's an exchange of value, not a donation.
James Harrison, blood donor whose rare plasma saved babies, dies - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43242328
And most people wouldn't be happy with a needle permanently tapped into their vein, so not really viable.