T-BOZ OF TLC CALLS ON AFRICAN AMERICANS TO STEP UP AND DONATE BONE MARROW (1210 hits)
BUSINESS WIRE--Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins rose to fame as an actress, singer and member of the popular 90s musical group TLC – all while quietly battling sickle cell disease. Now, she is lending her famous voice to encourage people, especially those in the African American community, to join the Be The Match Registry® as potential bone marrow donors and help others – like 11-year-old Imani Cornelius – fight similar life-threatening diseases.
“Donating is life-changing, not only for the individual who is receiving the transplant, but even for you. To know that you may have played a small part in actually saving someone’s life is extremely fulfilling” .Watkins has partnered with Be The Match® on two public service announcements. The PSAs will hit the airwaves and the Internet in July, which is African American Bone Marrow Awareness Month. Donor registry drives will also take place nationwide throughout the month.
“As a person with sickle cell disease and an advocate for everyone fighting this disease, I was naturally drawn to Be The Match,” Watkins said. “Unfortunately, myths about bone marrow donation keep many people from joining the Be The Match Registry and potentially saving a life. That is why I am passionate about encouraging everyone to learn the facts about bone marrow donation through these PSAs. We need more African Americans to step up.”
A bone marrow transplant can be a cure for someone with sickle cell disease or other illnesses like leukemia and lymphoma. Most patients who need transplants do not have a match in their family and depend on the Be The Match Registry to find a match.
But many African Americans and other minorities can’t find marrow donors – like Imani Cornelius, of Minneapolis. Imani was recently diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and her only hope for a cure is a bone marrow transplant. Her doctors continue to search the Be The Match Registry for a matching donor, but that search has not been easy as Imani is biracial.
Right now, the chance of finding a match on the Be The Match Registry is close to 93 percent for Caucasians, but for African Americans and other minorities, the chances can be as low as 66 percent.
The tissue types used for matching patients with donors are inherited, so patients are most likely to find a match within their own racial or ethnic heritage. There are 9 million people on the Be The Match Registry, but only 7 percent are African American.
Jonathan Nazeer, of Greensboro, N.C., saw firsthand the need for more African American donors when his friend was searching for a match. Jonathan joined the registry in 2006 on her behalf. Just a few years later he was called to donate to a 52-year-old woman battling a rare disease.
“Donating is life-changing, not only for the individual who is receiving the transplant, but even for you. To know that you may have played a small part in actually saving someone’s life is extremely fulfilling,” said Nazeer, who was recently contacted again as a match for an 18-year-old boy.
While the number of transplants that the NMDP facilitates for African American patients has doubled since 2004, more people of African American descent are urgently needed on the Be The Match Registry so that more lives can be saved.
“We have made great strides in expanding the number of patients and the range of diseases that can be treated with bone marrow transplants,” said Jeffrey W. Chell, M.D., chief executive officer of the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP), which operates the Be The Match Registry. “But we need more volunteers – from every ethnic and racial background – to meet the ultimate challenge of helping every patient find a life-saving donor.”
Visit BeTheMatch.org/StepUp to learn more about African American Bone Marrow Awareness Month and the many ways to help save lives. A widget is also available to help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter.
Wait a minute sis... donating bone marrow is painful as HECK! Ouch! I'll give blood and plasma but I'll have to think about this donation of bone marrow.
Tuesday, June 28th 2011 at 12:02PM
Jen Fad
I never donated marrow before so I don't know much about the procedure other than that the side effects from the donation including nausea and fatigue usually take between 24 to 48 hours to disappear in the donor's body...but I thought general or regional anesthesia is always used for numbing the pain?
Perhaps, but have you seen a bone marrow aspiration done? I think its a good thing to help our people, but can't they come up with a better way. Yikes!
It's called sacrificing for the good of another human being. ((Chuckling))
Tuesday, June 28th 2011 at 7:10PM
Jen Fad
Seriously though with all jokes aside, the major thing that we need to focus on regarding Sickle Cell Disease is prevention which requires more focus and education about getting tested for the Sickle Cell Trait. It's much less painful and doesn't require anesthetics or a huge long needle like in donating bone marrow. I was tested years ago before I was engaged to be married. I think all Black people should get tested for it especially if they are going to be married. After all, one wouldn't want to pass a disease as horrible as Sickle Cell Anemia on to their children. It's so debilitating.
Once a person is a carrier and he/she hooks up with someone else who's a carrier, they stand a 50-75% chance of having a child with Sickle Cell Disease as in T-Boz's case. We have a family friend who broke off his engagement to a woman who also was a carrier of the Sickle Cell trait. Not many of us would do that, but he has 4 beautiful and healthy girls with a wife who isn't a carrier. The thing is that the girls will have to make sure they are tested for the Sickle Trait because they all have a 25^ chance of being carriers since their father has the trait.
