
Man donated blood every week for 60 years and helped save 2.4M babies - pmoriarty
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/james-harrison-man-golden-arm-blood-donor-60-years-millions-babies-a8347896.html
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OliverJones
You know what? You can save lives even if you don't have some rare and
newsworthy antibody in your blood.

All kinds of patients need whole blood and plasma.

Cancer patients need platelets.

There's only one place to get most of this stuff: human donors. So look here
and go do it!

[http://www.redcross.org/support/blood-
donation](http://www.redcross.org/support/blood-donation)

~~~
ciconia
Donating blood is easy! It takes just a few minutes (for whole blood donation,
plasma and platelets donation is more involved), and there are health benefits
[1]. More than that, helping to save lives is a great way to start your day.
Good feeling, good karma!

[1] [https://www.medicaldaily.com/why-donating-blood-good-your-
he...](https://www.medicaldaily.com/why-donating-blood-good-your-
health-246379)

~~~
Tharkun
This part of the article struck me as strange:

> You can reduce your blood viscosity by donating blood on a regular basis,
> which eliminates the iron that may possibly oxidize in your blood.

The whole reason why blood is red, why red blood cells carry oxygen, is
_because_ of the iron, which is oxidized to transport oxygen ... ?

Given that only healthy folks are allowed to donate blood, surely there's a
fair amount of selection bias going on?

~~~
aplummer
My old man actually _has_ to donate blood once a month due to excess iron from
a condition.

~~~
geetfun
Yup, I believe it’s called Hemochromatosis. I can’t find the source but I
recall reading that donating blood also reduces cardiovascular risk.

------
denzil_correa
[https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/final-donation-for-man-
who...](https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/final-donation-for-man-whose-blood-
helped-save-2-4-million-babies-20180511-p4zerp.html)

> The 81-year-old's plasma contains a potent antibody used to create a
> remarkable treatment known as Anti-D that protects unborn babies from the
> potentially deadly Rhesus D Haemolytic Disease (HDN).

...

> But he has already surpassed the donor age limit and the Blood Service made
> decision to protect his health.

^ He has to stop soon for health reasons.

Here's a thought experiment, if we hypothetically have access to medicinal
records, details etc. of all humans on the earth - would it mean we'd have a
treatment for all diseases?

~~~
OliverJones
To your thought experiment: No. Why not?

Making the connections between medical records and treatments is called
"medical research." There's a vast amount of research left to do.

Medical records aren't complete or accurate, even if it was OK to share them
all. People who donate blood in the 21st century sign a release granting
permission to analyze their blood to search for factors needed, like
particular antibodies, and to send their blood where it matches the need.

(They got a specific hit on my blood once, for a particular patient I guess.
They asked me to come and donate every three days for about three weeks.)

~~~
stochastic_monk
There’s no shortage of startups hoping for this, but it looks like more hype
than hope. The one that first comes to mind is Arivale, which seems like it
was named right out of Silicon Valley season 1.

------
Zyst
This seems like an awfully important cause! Why are they sitting and hoping
someone will do it selflessly? That is risky, I feel.

Why not instead have, say, the government or a charity pay someone with this
profile 100k a year to go donate blood once a week?

Yes, hopefully someone would just do it, but it does feel like the upside is
strong enough that investing some money would be worthwhile. Hell, I hate
needles with a passion but I would sign up for donating weekly for the rest of
my life for 100k a year, I am sure orhers would as well.

Maybe a patreon or a gofundme or something?

~~~
Klathmon
It's an interesting ethics issue.

I'm sure there are people out there who would be more than happy to have their
"job" be providing blood or other things like it. And I think it would
probably benefit society as a whole for something like it.

But it does seem like it could very VERY easily go south really fast. And
there are a lot of ethical issues with it (like a salaried-donator wouldn't be
able to do anything to risk the health of that blood at any time, and would it
be okay for someone to permanently change their body to better accommodate
something like that? What about temporarily change their body?)

~~~
firethief
That's an interesting hypothetical, but there's no way someone could donate
blood "full time" to earn a living wage. There's an upper bound to how fast
one can produce blood, and a high proportion of people are capable of doing
it, so each person can represent at most a miniscule proportion of total
supply. It would be like making a career out of football if almost everyone
were equally fit and talented and lots of people played all the time for fun
and there were no NFL.

~~~
Klathmon
But what if we could we increase the amount of blood someone can donate. I
know something roughly similar is done when donating marrow.

What if we could augment humans to be able to produce absurd amounts of blood
and make it so it was a full-time job for those people?

If we could increase the amount of blood someone could donate by 100x, would
it start to become cheaper to just hire full-time donors rather than deal with
all the expenses around donations? And would it be ethical even if the donors
we're fully consenting and paid a good salary?

Like you said, its a interesting hypothetical to say the least!

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josephwegner
I was literally just looking in to starting blood donations again, now that I
have a flexible remote job (I stopped when I had kids, and time got
expensive).

As a shot in the dark, does anyone here know how the different donation orgs
(red Cross, heartland, etc.) stack up against each other? I'm having trouble
finding unbiased sources, and am curious if the organizations vary greatly in
ethics/profit strategies/proficiency of staff, etc.

~~~
skinnymuch
I’d like to help out too. Though I’ll admit I wasn’t thinking of it much until
this thread. I also searched a bit but am wanting of more info on where best
to donate.

------
himom
EDIT: US donors can find a place to donate here
[https://www.redcross.org/give-blood](https://www.redcross.org/give-blood).
Almost every modern country has a “where to donate” website.

Long-time A+ donor here, not as long. Platelets donation takes time and uses a
large needle, but can be done every week. Whole blood uses a smaller needle
and can be done every 8 weeks. Private blood donation clinics tend to have
better snacks and shiny new everything. Stanford’s main blood donation center
was adequate but unremarkable last time I was there.

------
wonderbear
I was rather excited to find out that I had a rare blood type and that
donations are so easy and that I live near a clinic. My regular visits are
quite rewarding. It feels good to matter for more than the tickets closed this
week.

------
EvanAnderson
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17051076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17051076)

------
majos
Semi-related question: is the reason smaller people can't donate smaller
quantities of blood that transfusion volumes are completely standardized and
odd quantities of blood not practically usable? I ask as someone who's never
been close to passing the (apparently universal in the US) 115lb threshold and
maybe never will.

~~~
projektfu
The bags contain a specific amount of anticoagulant and require 450ml blood.
There's about 90ml blood per kg body weight, so a 50kg person has 4500ml. It's
safe to donate 10%. The cutoff in the US is actually 110lbs (50kg).

~~~
ken
The exact weight requirement varies. At my blood center, for the kind of
donations I do, it's actually 114 lbs, for some reason.

~~~
jdietrich
I'd guess that the extra 4lbs is a safety margin for scale accuracy and the
weight of clothing.

~~~
ken
I'm not sure. Curiously, some types of donation (whole, and double-red
apheresis) have a minimum of 110 pounds here, while others (apheresis
platelets, plasma) have a minimum of 114 pounds. I'd think if they were
worried about scale accuracy or clothing weight, the same safety margin would
apply to all donation types -- or at least all apheresis donations.

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mac01021
50 * 60 is 3000. Can 3000 donations really save millions of babies?

~~~
isostatic
Austrailia has about 300,000 births a year, or 20 million in the last 60
years.

Seems unlikely that austrailia would have a 5% miscarriage rate if he hadn't
donated blood. With risk that high it's something you'd expect to know about
widely, with at least 1 in 50 mothers receiving the injection

~~~
tathougies
Rh disease is taught about in high school, and is one of the first things
doctors check for. If a woman is of type negative blood, then she will likely
have been told as a young girl that her children may be at risk depending on
the father.

I guess what I’m saying is — rh disease is probably the most widely known and
treated complication of pregnancy

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stevemk14ebr
Why is this antigen so rare? Is it not something that can be grown and
manufactured in a lab. We know of at least a few people that produce it
naturally, have studies been done to simulate the process that occurs
naturally?

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bastawhiz
Sadly, donating blood is not always so easy, especially if you're an LGBT
person.

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VectorLock
Over 1100 donations from his right side. I wonder what his arm looks like.
After getting stuck that many times would it be easier to just put in a
central line?

