James Harrison, Who Has Helped Save Lives of More Than 2.4 Million Australian Babies, Retires (cnn.com)

Most people, when they retire, get a gold watch. James Harrison deserves so much more than that. From a report: Harrison, known as the "Man With the Golden Arm," has donated blood nearly every week for 60 years. After all those donations, the 81-year-old Australian man "retired" Friday. The occasion marked the end of a monumental chapter. According to the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, he has helped saved the lives of more than 2.4 million Australian babies. Harrison's blood has unique, disease-fighting antibodies that have been used to develop an injection called Anti-D, which helps fight against rhesus disease. This disease is 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.

Comments

Re:Democrats in the US...

[dmr001]

Yes, Democrats have a well-known negative stance about Rh-positive babies. Including A+, B+, AB+, and of course O+(?)

Oooh-kay. For those of you not familiar with basic newborn hematology, if a mom has Rh-negative blood (relatively rare compared at 15% to Rh-positive blood) and the baby has Rh-positive blood, and during pregnancy the mom's blood gets exposed to babies (can happen in car accidents and other placental problems resulting in fetal-maternal hemorrhage - the fetus's blood ends up in mom's circulation) the mom will start to make antibodies against the babies Rh antigens (more specifically, Rh-D antigens - there's more than one - Rhesus is a whole group; the D antigen is the troublesome one). This is one of the reasons couples contemplating marriage used to get blood tests in the United States, before the introduction of the medicine folks like James Harrison made possible.

In the United States, anti-D is typically referred to by its brand name, RhoGAM. It has antibodies to Rh-D - just a small amount, though. You inject this into a mom, her immune system detects them, and then if it sees actual anti-D from the fetus her immune system doesn't freak out and attack the fetal blood cells. Now and then we run into patients who do not like vaccines, which RhoGAM more or less is. The first baby is fine. The second baby to be exposed will often die (NSFW: pictures). In babies who don't die from hemolytic disease of the newborn (where their blood cells are destroyed, by maternal antibodies, among other problems) they can suffer brain damage. Treatment involves exchange transfusion and, in less severe cases, phototherapy, where we shine 460 nm light on them for a few days—hopefully not knocking too many DNA off the strand in the process.

Alternatively, you can take your chances with red raspberry and nettle tea, according to this person who claims to uphold evidence-based wellness, though she doesn't actually cite any evidence.

RhoGAM is made from pooled human plasma, like the gentleman cited in the article. He just happened to have a substantial amount of the antibodies, likely the result of blood transfusion exposure.

Re:Nearly every week?

[Minupla]

Speaking as a father whose daughter survived because of this injection (not his exactly - we're on the other side of the world), but who cares really) I'd just like to publicly thank this man for his time and humanity. It's easy to poke fun at the statistics and such, but let's all take a moment to acknowledge that this gentleman took time out of his life EVERY WEEK FOR 60 YEARS to give something precious that improved lives for millions of people.

Imagine you and your wife (or vice versa) are in your first trimester and she starts bleeding a bit. You rush to ER and they do blood work, and you realize to your horror that your blood is killing your child. And then the doctors say to your wife "sign here, we've made a vaccine that we're going to give you that should stop it". I literally sobbed.

My daughter is playing on her computer behind me as I type this and can't see the tears in my eyes.

Give the man a medal.

Min