Thank you, Mata, for doing this

snigdhasen — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 19:36:25 -0500

I read all the responses and felt good that given a chance and some encouragement, people will try.
I am making a note of all the figures that one of your readers provided. Thanks again!

a bit happened

Mata H — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 11:09:07 -0500

I'm not sure how helpful it was, but a couple of responses came in, one from someone who tried to qualify that could not, but he had a relative who had made an offer to help. The comments are here.

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs relentlessly at Time's Fool

Thanks a bunch, Mata!

snigdhasen — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:32:03 -0500

Very nice of you to help get the word out. I am still working with NMDP to confirm the figures/data being used, just to make sure we have the whole picture.

Snigdha

spreading the word

Mata H — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 13:17:09 -0500

Hi -- I hope you don't mind that I lifted a lot of your post (with credit given) and re-published your plea on my home blog which can be found here I encourage people to pass on the news via their own blogs, just as I encourage all reading this to do so. We can help get the word out even if our marrow does not match.

My prayers are with those waiting and their families - it must be unbearable.

--Mata H

~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs relentlessly at Time's Fool.

Thanks for spreading the

Amanda Shaffer — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:44:23 -0500

Thanks for spreading the word about marrow/stem cell/cord blood donation. So many lives are at stake, and it is really a simple procedure. I hope that Vinay finds his match.

Amanda Shaffer, Blogher Health and Wellness Contributing Editor

The Adventures of Cat Lady.

Thank you Odanajane

snigdhasen — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:15:06 -0500

Thank you for sharing your experience. I hope such direct feedback will help others get over their apprehensions.
And now I know what I am likely to go through if I am found to be an appropriate match.
Thanks again, Odanajane.

donating bone marrow

odanajane — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 22:04:28 -0500

I want to let everyone who has ever considered donating bone marrow know that it is easy and painless. When I donated I went in a week ahead of time to donate a pint of blood to be given back to me during the procedure. The day of the transplant I was put under for what seemed like a few minutes, but was actually a few hours. I had two incisions on my hip bone(left and right). Each was about 1/4 inch long and had a piece of tape over it. Two days later I was back at work. No big deal. Incidentally, the patient is alive and well. My donation was in 1985.

South Asians struggle to find committed marrow donors

snigdhasen — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:22:07 -0500

I will confess right off the bat that when I first saw this post on Sepia Mutiny, I told myself I'd come back to it later and delve deeper. I would've moved on, had it not been for my sister-in-law's insistence that I attend to
this call for help immediately.

In November last year, Vinay Chakravarthy, a 28-year-old orthopedics resident at the Boston Medical Center, was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a life-threatening cancer of the blood. A month ago his leukemia relapsed and he was informed that he needed a bone marrow transplant. Vinay's friends swung into action. They approached the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) and together they have been organizing donor registration drives across the country. Their target population: South Asians.

The NMDP tells me that a cross-racial match is not impossible, but far less probable. The closer the ethnicity, the higher the chances of a perfect match.

This is where Vinay and his friends hit their first roadblock. Of the over six million registered donors, 415,000 are Asians. That's less than 7 percent. Vinay's website says South Asians form barely one percent of those registered. A press release issued by those conducting the drive for Vinay also states that while a Caucasian has a 1 in 15 chance of finding a match, a South Asian has 1 in 20,000 chance of finding one. (I am waiting for the NMDP to confirm these figures)

Now, that's a significant shortage, given that the Census Bureau estimates the country's Asian Indian population to be 2.5 million. The estimates also say that 49 percent of “single-race Asians 25 and older [...] have a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education. This compares to 27 percent for all people 25 and older.”

So what exactly is all that education doing for us?

For Vinay, the lack of registered South Asian donors was only the first hurdle. Vinay's messages about how he's doing are regularly posted on the website. Here's what happened on June 21:

Today I found out that I almost had a match. But the South Asian donor(s) is “not available”. I’m utterly devastated. I’d known that Asians as a whole came through with a whopping 60% failure rate (lower than any other ethnic group) to actually agree to the donation process once they were identified as a match, but I thought my match would be that special 40% who would do anything to save a fellow brother’s life.

Among many of the reasons South Asians generally give for declining, some say “their family would not support their donation process”. I have a question for all my Indian brothers and sisters out there: Since when did our families start to come in the way of us helping another fellow human being?? We pride ourselves on having good family values. I ask you now to remember those values that we hold so dear because that is what makes our community so special.”

What's stopping so many South Asian registered donors from following through? In an article about Vinay, ABC News quotes Dr. Galen Switzer of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center as saying:

We find with Asian-Americans [...]that the decision to donate is not made by the individual. Instead, it's a decision the family will make together. Many donors express concern that their families will not support the idea of donating.

Now Vinay's friends and supporters have made this drive not only about finding a perfect match for him or even increasing the number of South Asian registrants. They want this drive to be about finding committed donors.

Unfortunately, Vinay is not the only South Asian in dire need of a matching donor. Thirty-one-year-old Sameer Bhatia, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur from San Francisco, was diagnosed with AML in May, and needs a bone marrow transplant. His friends and family joined “Team Vinay” and together are trying to recruit committed donors ASAP.

The clock is ticking. Vinay may need a transplant as early as July 20. For that, his search for the perfect match will have to end by July 9. Sameer probably has less than two months for his transplant.

Team Vinay has completed 172 drives (over 10,000 have registered since the drives began), and promises to keep up the effort all through summer. Their website, www.helpvinay.org, is packed with information about marrow donation, how to register, stories of successful donors and upcoming drives. You will also find information about how pregnant women can help by donating umbilical cords.

Vinay, Sameer and their well-wishers have taken their personal pleas and turned them into a movement for all South Asians: an effort that will benefit many others in need of help right now, and the entire community in future. Some personalities are lending their support to the cause as well, including Sen. Barack Obama, actor Kal Penn, and Indian film actors Radhika and Revathy.

If you are of South Asian descent or know people who are, this is a good time to put your community service ideas into action. I spent my July 4 afternoon with my husband at one of the donor registration drives.

One tip: Be prepared with contact details (address, email, phone numbers) of at least two persons you know not residing in the same house as yours.

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