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The Man With the Golden Blood
First time accepted submitter Torontoman points out this story of a man with one of the rarest blood types in the world. Forty years ago, when ten-year-old Thomas went into the University Hospital of Geneva with a routine childhood infection, his blood test revealed something very curious: he appeared to be missing an entire blood group system. There are 35 blood group systems, organized according to the genes that carry the information to produce the antigens within each system. The majority of the 342 blood group antigens belong to one of these systems. The Rh system (formerly known as ‘Rhesus’) is the largest, containing 61 antigens. The most important of these Rh antigens, the D antigen, is quite often missing in Caucasians, of whom around 15 per cent are Rh D negative (more commonly, though inaccurately, known as Rh-negative blood). But Thomas seemed to be lacking all the Rh antigens. If this suspicion proved correct, it would make his blood type Rhnull – one of the rarest in the world, and a phenomenal discovery for the hospital hematologists.
he will become a frequent contributor one day.
It's a story about people. It's not about you. You shouldn't "care". But it's an interesting, well-written story anyway.
The question of the GP was probably not so outlandish. I, for one, was wondering the same. Ok, it's interesting that he's got some oddity in his blood. But ... what does that mean? Can it be used to find out something about our blood in general? Is he something like the "perfect donor"? Does it somehow express itself in his being or behaviour? Does it affect his life?
I admit I only perused the article, but aside of some anecdotes the bottom line is that yes, it's rare, and finding donors is difficult. That's as far as I can tell it. It's entertaining. Not very insightful, but entertaining.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.