From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Thu Mar 27 2003 - 12:32:55 MST
Charles Hixson:
>Personal blood banks aren't yet practical, except right before
>surgery. Blood can only be preserved live for a couple of weeks (at
>most). After that it has to be rendered down for plasma and other
>fractions. But you might look into joining the Rare Blood Club (I
>think that's its name). This is an organization of people with rare
>blood types who donate to help others with rare blood types. Now you
>didn't say ABnegative, but I think that it also includes AB. Still,
>check it out.
I saw these numbers (didn't save the web page tho)
AB- is 0.7 % population
AB+ is 3.4 % (me) I don't know if this qualifies as 'rare'.
As Spike mentioned: My AB type is a 'Universal Recipient', but I
think that must be for red blood cells, not necessarily for whole
blood, if I'm reading the next chart correctly:
http://www.bloodbook.com/compat.html
Even though the reasons for banking my blood don't appear as strong
now (I didn't know that the storage for live blood had that short of
a lifetime), the web pages I read make a good argument that I should
be donating blood (the Italian Red Cross would likely be the people
I would work through)
http://www.bloodbook.com/rare-chart.html
---- An excerpt: "As a side note for these relatively few people having rare Blood, there exists several great tools, the American Rare Donor Program (ARDP), among others. The American Red Cross, in collaboration with the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB), maintains this rare donor database as part of the ARDP program. This organization identifies donors who have rare Blood and these rare Blood types and ask them to enlist in a registry. When a need for their special Blood type arises, they can call upon another donor, also on the list, to give. The Red Cross freezes these rare units of red cells to assure their availability as needed. By the way, if you are ever asked to join this registry, "yes" is a good response. Someone, somewhere, may need what you, and only you, may be able to give. Rare Blood may be sent anywhere in the world to literally save a life. Rare Blood requests are received in every Blood center every day. It is very important that everyone know if they have a special Blood type. Some patients with rare Blood types need to be transfused with exactly the same rare type as their own. We suggest Blood storage in every case of rare Blood. The Frozen Autologous Blood Reserve Service freezes Blood that patients with rare Blood types donate for their own surgeries. It is also very important to know the race or ethnic background of a Blood donor or candidate for a Blood transfusion. The Blood center physician, or Blood bank technician must always be alert for special Blood types. Your Blood type is inherited just like the color of your eyes and hair. Many Blood types, therefore, are found only in specific racial and ethnic groups. For example listed here is a very few of the most common Blood types in the most often seen rare ethnic categories:" (see web page for the rest) ---- The last paragraph leads to something interesting- there is a geographical and racial distribution of blood types, which would be an interesting data set to analyze, however, the authors state that there is not enough reliability to determine such things as population migration patterns. My blood type is most common in Asians (while my background is 1/2 Latvian, then 1/4 Greek and German!). ---- http://www.bloodbook.com/world-abo.html Excerpt "There are racial and ethnic differences in Blood type and composition. The ABO Blood group system was discovered in 1901 and since it is of major importance in medicine, samples have been diligently collected from the most remote of people groups for a century. Of no other human characteristic is so much data available. Most populations have migrated and mixed. Unfortunately the reliability of the Blood data for assessing relationships between population groups is very limited. This is mostly due to the lack of availability of this important data. As the chart reveals, the frequency and purity of the four main ABO Blood groups varies in populations throughout the world. A great variation may even occur in different groups within a given country; even a small country, as one ethnic group mixes, or not, with another. As an example, the early European races are characterized by a very low type B frequency, and a relatively high type A frequency while the Asiatic races are characterized by a high frequency of types A and B. The following chart does not consider Rh factor and may vary in specific regions. It is also different for some very particular racial or ethnic groups. We have highlighted interesting pure anomalies. The frequency with which Blood types are observed is determined by the frequency with which the three alleles of the ABO gene are found in different parts of the world. Variation in this allele frequency of the ABO gene reflects the social tendency of populations to marry and reproduce within their national, regional, or ethnic group. As people throughout the world intermingle to a greater degree, the distribution of the different Blood types will continue to become more uniform. Red cell antigens are the phenotypical expression of our inherited genes. One of the most common questions that we get is about the the ethnic and racial distribution of human Blood groups. In response, following here is our collection of basic ABO Blood group data, sorted by people groups." ----- John Grigg: >P.S. I would beg everyone out there who rides a bicycle or a motorcycle >to always wear their helmet. Always. That's why I call it my brain bucket. [See my brain bucket taking a break here, while I was out walking around and snapping pictures: :-) http://www.amara.com/port/parkedbike@Sines_50.jpg] -- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "A million here, a million there, sooner or later it is real money." -- U.S. Senator Dirksen
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