Back in May 2008, I posted an appeal for people of Asian descent to sign up at local bone marrow registries on behalf of Carolyn Tam, who was fighting leukemia. Less than one year later, I sadly posted the news that Carolyn had passed away.
From the One Match website:
A person’s best chance of finding a matching donor is within his or her own ethnic group, it is important that the composition of OneMatch reflect Canada’s rich ethnic diversity. It is also important for the future of OneMatch to attract young donors.
The Asian population is not well-represented in the donor databases, creating a situation where it is difficult to find matches for Asians waiting to receive bone marrow transplants.
More than 20 Chinese patients in Canada are searching for a stem cell donor that can save their lives. People 17-50 years of age are needed to join OneMatch registry.
There is a National Chinese Stem Cell Drive taking place in Vancouver and Toronto on Saturday, March 27 from 11am-5pm. There are three locations in the Greater Toronto Area and one Greater Vancouver:
Markham: First Markham Place (Hwy 7/Woodbine)
Scarborough: Splendid China Mall (Kennedy Rd/Steeles Ave E.)
Toronto: Chinese Gospel Church (450 Dundas West/Spadina – Chinatown)
Richmond: Aberdeen Centre (No 3 Rd/Cambie Rd)
To find out more information, please visit www.chinesestemcell.ca or www.onematch.ca today! Registering as a stem cell donor is free.
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I have a silly question: are stem cells donors screened the same way blood donors are?
For instance, I wanted to donate blood in Canada but I can’t because I lived in Europe for too long (mad cow disease etc.) I wonder if there are the same kind of “restrictions” for stem cells donors, which could explain why some ethnic groups are under-represented. Which is no excuse for those who can give to do it, obviously
.-= Zhu’s last blog … I Can Vote! =-.
Definitely not a silly question! I can’t donate blood in Canada for the same reason, so when I first found out about this bone marrow registry, I checked the Canadian Blood Services website to see if the policy still stands for Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease… and it does. Since it all comes under the same authority and the potential risk to the recipient of bone marrow is the same as for blood, I interpret the policies to be the same. Read it here. Now, I haven’t phoned the information line to double-check but when I do I’ll post it here.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t explain the low Asian representation, so I appeal to others who may qualify…
I would love to donate my blood but I can’t!
Yep, I checked after posting the comment and you are right, I can’t donate either blood or bone marrow because I lived in France for too long (well, definitely over 3 months).
It doesn’t really explain the low Asian representation though but it sure can explain low representation of other ethnicity.
So if you can give, do it!
.-= Zhu’s last blog … I Can Vote! =-.
It’s a policy problem I’m suggesting to future cohorts in the MPP program for study: why visible minority and Aboriginal populations in Canada are so reluctant to come forward as organ and tissue donors. I couldn’t address it in my own thesis, but I have some data collected from my survey in November that could be of use to someone looking at the problem.
I am from the Latin Community, we have formed a group called Save a Latin Life and have been working with One Match for over a year to get more Latin people to Register with them. We were told that people who may not qualify to donate blood can register with One Match, if and when a person is found to be a possible match for someone, more in depth testing is done to see if that person can be a donor. So please encourage anybody who want to register to do it. Sometimes they will receive a phone call to ask more questions about their medical history during the registration process.
A great campaign has been done in Canada by the Chinese Stem Cell Initiative, and in the registration Event that they held on Saturday March 27, 2010 in Toronto and BC over 4,000 people got registered with One Match, that is great!!!!, so keep encouraging everybody you know to register. Thank you for your great Web site.