Slashdot Mirror
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.
You get your own blood drive:
http://www.archonstl.org/31/he...
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.
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.
The deal is if you are (say) an Rh positive fetus in an Rh negative mom who was previously exposed to another fetus's D antigens (and D is often the culprit) you can get your blood cells nailed by mom's previously-formed anti-D antibodies. You get anemia, jaundice as well, and the potential various bad side effects therefrom (heart damage, brain damage, swelling all over[may not be safe for work]). Similar havoc ensues with anti-K. Preventive therapy with RhoGAM is available to prevent anti-D disease; it's a soup of anti-D antibodies that scavenge any fetal Rh-D positive blood cells that happen to find their way into mom's circulation. It's produced from pooled human blood plasma, though even most Jehovah's Witnesses (since a 1974 church opinion) and Jews (because there's an escape hatch in kashrut for saving human life) find it acceptable for treatment in order to prevent this fairly terrifying surprise G-d had in store for a few unlucky babies.
Right, he only perused it, he hasn't had the time to grok it.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz