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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.
Thinking of actual gold-colored blood, I was expecting a human/arachnid hybrid. A spider-man, if you will.
You get your own blood drive:
http://www.archonstl.org/31/he...
Because while reading this you may eventually learn something?
Because it is shinning a light on some rare people who can only give a fuck?
It's a story about people. It's not about you. You shouldn't "care". But it's an interesting, well-written story anyway.
'member him? he married Alexandria Bea Positive.
It *is* a summary failure--just indicating that it's rare doesn't make it newsworthy. Mentioning that it's more universally applicable as donor blood than Type O would have been a good idea since we're not all hemotologists.
A: Krylon Technicolor type A
Mike Shinoda is the only known carrier.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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.
I do find this interesting and would welcome links suitable for the lay person on the subject. But I'm not sure if these blood types are rare or just not something that is usually looked at, and I'm at a loss to understand why and how it was checked and found in this case. I'm used to the four major groupings (A, B, AB (both A and B) and O (neither A or B)) and the main RH factor that determines RH+ or RH-. But I seldom see any mention of special typing beyond this and I don't know if all blood is typed for these special extra factors and then that information is just withheld form patients or if the majority of tests are just for these major 8 categories. I suspect the latter. But that brings up the question of when and why blood is ever tested for all of these other "minor" typings, and just how minor are they. Occasionally we hear about someone who needs extremely rare blood, but the medical world seems to be content to classify me as B+. What does one do to rate these extra special tests?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I donate blood all the time, it's just not mine. They don't ask questions about where it comes from. Anymore.
he will become a frequent contributor one day.
Yes, re-submitting articles that were on the front page in the past 7 days is incredibly helpful.
Right, he only perused it, he hasn't had the time to grok it.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Worst Bond film ever.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
He first donated as an 18-year-old in the army
As a 18-year-old Greek conscript marine i did the "1 day honorable leave donation", even if just the "1 hour away from the barracks" was good enough for me - 20 years later i proudly am in the process of getting a new donors card because the old is full with the records of my donations.
Donate blood!
That's interesting. Some things are the same everywhere. In the US Army we got the day off for donating blood, too. It's a great idea and was one of the few really nice perks. (Side note: every three-day weekend we automatically got a fourth day off. See the Army's not *that* bad, hah).
I eventually earned a five gallon donation lapel pin from the Red Cross after I left the service. I told someone this once and she said "You donated 5 gallons of blood today?" *faceslap* Well I'm B+ which is not rare but isn't really too common, either, it seems.
Though I've slacked on my donations lately. This is reminding me I should start thinking more about that.
Cheers AC Greek veteran!
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?
In a nutshell, his blood is the universal blood for people with rare Rh blood types (but not truly universal blood that can be given to absolutely anyone, as I understand it). It makes his blood a backup for quite a few rare blood types, but perversely his blood type is so much rarer than those others that supplies of his blood type are more tightly controlled than other rare types.
There is a hint in the article that people with his blood type are expected to be short-tempered (probably not just because of the constant requests to give blood), but there are no proven links between blood type and personality traits, afaik.
One interesting point is that this guy's blood is incredibly rare (and therefore also potentially valuable for both research and direct medical use), but it actually costs him money - when he is asked to donate blood, usually by going to the center that needs the blood instead of his local donation center (helps keep the blood fresh, but mainly to avoid the bureaucratic headaches of transporting blood across borders), he has to take time off work and arrange his own transport unless something unofficial is provided - the blood donors in most Eurpoean countries receive no financial compensation at all, even to out-of-pocket expenses.
wonder if a look back over historic records will find more of these that were dismissed as 'testing error' or 'typo'?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
This part of the text is where you should start then (By the way, I am certainly not a physician, just interested, as you are):
There are 35 blood group systems, organised 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 AB group is the earliest discovered (?) blood group system. The Rh group another (that +/- thing you were taught is an extreme simplification of it and points only to one antigen from the complete 60-odd set of Rh antigens). And there are 33 more blood group systems, apparently. I knew there was more than AB and Rh but I didn't know there were that many myself.
Start on some Wikipedia pages first. A lot of information is pretty accessible there. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_blood_group_systems
Then, if you want to know even more, start following the references away from Wikipedia and try to get articles about the subject from medical literature.