Newsletter

February 2005
APA Bone Marrow Donors Needed
Alan Ramos

Thousands of children from China have been adopted into families in the U.S. While most have been very healthy, serious health problems sometimes occur. One child, six year old Sara Ruehling, (www.marrowforsara.org) is currently in need of a bone marrow transplant. The best opportunity for a match is a family member, however, these children have no knowledge of the families in China that abandoned them. As a result, they must search for a match in the Asian American community. Unfortunately, there are very few Asians registered as potential bone marrow donors. In the National Marrow Registry, there are currently nearly 10x more Caucasian donors than Asian donors. This means that Asian patients have a far lower chance of finding a match than a Caucasian patient.

Everyone should consider joining the marrow registry since every Patient should have thebest chance of beating bone and blood cancers. The Process is free, simple, and nonintrusive. Join others in giving hope to Marrow recipients ... you could be Sara's miracle marrow match! The registryprocess is simple and only requires a small amount of blood from a finger stick and a little paperwork. Once a person is in the registry, the chances are they will never be matched with a person in need of marrow. But if they are matched, it is simply an opportunity. They are not obligated to make the donation, if for some reason it is not something they can do or wish to do at that time. The AADP, Asian American Donor Program (www.aadp.org) is located in Oakland.