Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Man With the "Golden Arm" Has Saved Lives of 2 Million Babies

Posted by samzenpus on from the save-every-drop dept.

schwit1 writes: James Harrison, known as "The Man with the Golden Arm," has donated blood plasma from his right arm nearly every week for the past 60 years. Soon after Harrison became a donor, doctors called him in. His blood, they said, could be the answer to a deadly problem. Harrison was discovered to have an unusual antibody in his blood and in the 1960s he worked with doctors to use the antibodies to develop an injection called Anti-D. It prevents women with rhesus-negative blood from developing RhD antibodies during pregnancy. "In Australia, up until about 1967, there were literally thousands of babies dying each year, doctors didn't know why, and it was awful," explains Jemma Falkenmire, of the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. "Women were having numerous miscarriages and babies were being born with brain damage." It was the result of rhesus disease — a condition where a pregnant woman's blood actually starts attacking her unborn baby's blood cells. In the worst cases it can result in brain damage, or death, for the babies. Australia was one of the first countries to discover a blood donor with this antibody, so it was quite revolutionary at the time. Last year we ran a story about another person with "golden blood" named Thomas.

17 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Guest House by kheldan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Do they label the containers of his donated blood 'GH 325'?

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  2. Hmmm ... by gstoddart · · Score: 2

    Can they not cultivate these antibodies?

    Because, you know, relying entirely on this one guy seems like bad idea.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re: Hmmm ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A). Not entirely, no. They can isolate and concentrate it, maybe stimulate production, but full synthesis? I don't see that happening yet.

      B). There are other people with a similar mutation, so he isn't the only possible source. He is just an example of a very reliable one. If it were necessary, they could screen all of Australia and possibly find several, even among his relatives.

    2. Re:Hmmm ... by Sqweegee · · Score: 4, Informative

      They don't have to at all.

      I worked for one of the company that produced WinRho SDF and we collected donations locally and a location in the US. There's probably a few hundred potential donors in the average sized city. There's a half dozen different name brands for the stuff.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

    3. Re:Hmmm ... by GreyWanderingRogue · · Score: 4, Interesting

      From the article, it sounds like he developed the anitgen from having received more than 3 liters of blood during surgery as a youth. If I'm understanding correctly, his body was given blood incompatible with his own and so it created the antigen to deal with it. Does that mean that the hundred people in a typical city acquired it the same way, and that the number of people developing it will decrease as fewer people are given incompatible blood and those who have in the past die off?

    4. Re:Hmmm ... by cdrudge · · Score: 2

      A little bit later in the article it states "Heâ(TM)s one of no more than 50 people in Australia known to have the antibodies, according the Australian Red Cross blood service."

      My guess is that he's not the only one that could be used, but only one person donating is needed to meet supply demands.

    5. Re:Hmmm ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm one of those. Most anybody with Rh negative blood type could be one.

      The process is a bit squicky, at least in theory. I get matched up with an Rh + donor with roughly the same antigen profile as mine, I get injected with that donor's blood (it's quarantined for some period of time after donation, to make sure that the donor doesn't show signs of latent diseases like HIV), and my body starts making antibodies to the Rh factor in the donor blood. I donate plasma a couple times a week, the lab siphons off the antibodies I made, and turn it into a drug to give pregnant women. The whole cycle repeats about every 6 weeks or so. I get a decent little check every week for my time and some free cookies and apple juice, and the lab gets to make a product that they charge through the nose for. Win-win!

    6. Re:Hmmm ... by xevioso · · Score: 4, Funny

      The most famous donor in Australia has left the Citadel and is out wandering around the Outback, so it may be tough to find him...although some of Immortan Joe's henchman might be after him...

  3. So this is the dude behind Rhogam? by sconeu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I owe him for the lives of both my daughters. I'm O+, my late wife was O-, and both girls were O+. My wife got Rhogam and both girls were healthy.

    Mr. Harrison, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    1. Re:So this is the dude behind Rhogam? by Firethorn · · Score: 2

      I would have had a younger sister if it wasn't for this. I was the first RH mismatch in my family...

      Sadly, it looks like the treatment didn't reach the USA until at least a decade later.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
  4. Immortan Joe by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 2

    Don't let him know about this guy.

  5. man with golden arm saves babies by ZippyTheChicken · · Score: 4, Funny

    was so hoping it wasn't about breach births

  6. Re:Right arm by GNious · · Score: 2

    Dude - blood-flow!
    Goes up in the left arm, down in the right one. If you try to draw on the left one, all you'll see is air being sucked into the veins!

  7. Re:Net savings by gurps_npc · · Score: 2
    No it does not.

    The basic problem is that the kids' blood is different from the mothers. As such, the mother's body attack's the kid's blood.

    The problem re-occures when the mother gives birth to a female child that has blood similar to her own. But in that case the daughter does NOT need the blood.

    So actually every kid the golden arm saves will never have to worry about this problem again.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  8. SURE they can. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Informative

    They can isolate and concentrate it, maybe stimulate production, but full synthesis? I don't see that happening yet.

    Huh?

    Human monoclonal antibodies have been grown by culturing gene-engineered mouse cells since at least 1988. They're already in use treating a number of diseases and more are in the approval pipeline.

    From Wikipedia:

    Building on the work of many others, in 1975, Georges KÃhler and César Milstein succeeded in making fusions of myeloma cell lines with B cells to produce hybridomas that made antibodies to known antigens and that were immortalized.[2] They shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984 for the discovery.[2]

    In 1988, Greg Winter and his team pioneered the techniques to humanize monoclonal antibodies,[3] removing the reactions that many monoclonal antibodies caused in some patients.

    Monoclonal antibodies have been generated and approved to treat cancer, cardiovascular disease, inflammatory diseases, macular degeneration, transplant rejection, multiple sclerosis, and viral infection (see monoclonal antibody therapy).

    In August 2006 the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America reported that U.S. companies had 160 different monoclonal antibodies in clinical trials or awaiting approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

    This disease process looks like suitable candidate for this approach, as well.

    A few antibody PRODUCING cells, harvested from the same donor(s) as the antibodies, would be an ideal starting point: The antibodies have already been proven to cure the disease, so only a production mechanism is needed. Once a suitable cell line has been constructed, tested, and its product approved, the donor can retire, secure in the knowledge that his genetic material will continue to save mothers' and babies' lives, even long after his death.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  9. How can one do apheresis donation for 60 years?? by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a platelet donator myself I have nothing but respect for Mr. James Harrison

    Unlike Mr. James Harrison I simply can't foresee I can do 600 bouts of aphresis donation

    During the 'peak years' I donated almost once every 2 weeks, as I was always 'on call' by the blood bank as my platelet count is high (more than 350, sometimes approaching 400)

    Many blood banks prefer to give the patients, - especially those severely weakened patients who had gone through regiments of chemotherapy to fight their blood/bone marrow cancers, - platelets from single donor rather than platelets collected from multiple donors

    Thus far I have done platelet donation for more than 200 times, but due to the accumulation of scar tissues many of the blood veins in both of my arms have either collapsed, or shrunk

    I still give blood, but whole blood, as my veins can no longer take the punishment from the aphresis process

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  10. Re:How can one do apheresis donation for 60 years? by rpstrong · · Score: 2

    What part of 'donation' do you not understand?