James Harrison is called the man with the golden arm. For more than 60 years he has donated blood once a week to the Australian Red Cross. At 81 years old Harrison is finally retiring. He has to, because Australian law prohibits anyone over age 81 from giving blood. In any sense giving blood for 60 years every week is a monumental achievement, but come on, 2.4 million baby’s lives? Well there is a reason he is credited with accomplishment. You see Harrison’s blood has a unique disease fighting antibody and it is used in an injection called Anti-D. The serum made from Harrison’s blood fights a disease called Rhesus. Pregnant women with Rhesus disease are put in a position where their blood attacks their unborn babies blood cells. In extreme cases it will result in brain damage or death. Here’s what happens. The condition develops when a pregnant woman has rhesus-negative blood (RhD negative) and the baby in her womb has rhesus-positive blood (RhD positive), inherited from its father. If the mother has been sensitized to rhesus-positive blood, usually during a previous pregnancy with an rhesus-positive baby, she may produce antibodies that destroy the baby’s “foreign” blood cells. Of course we have discussed what could happens to the child if this occurs.
According to Harrison, when he was in his 20’s, he had to have chest surgery. Blood donations saved his life and he pledge he would return the favor by becoming a blood donor. After some time doctors discovered something wonderful about Harrison blood. It contained an antibody that could save millions of children from Rhesus disease. At first he just gave blood for them to make the injection, but soon switch over to making blood plasma as to help as many as possible. Doctor don’t know why Harrison has this rare blood type. Of the 26 million people that live in Australia, he is one of no more than 50 people known to have the antibody. Every batch of the Anti-D made in Australia has come from Harrison’s blood. There are 12.2 million women living in Australia and 17% are susceptible to the disease. Do the math.. over 2 million babies have benefited from from the selflessness of James Harrison. According to the experts, up until 1967 there were literally thousands of babies dying each year. Women were having miscarriages and children were being born with brain damage. Discovering the cure in Harrison’s blood was revolutionary and a godsend on par with the discovery of the polio vaccine by Jonas Salk. Harrison’s has given his last blood donation. Jemma Falkenmire of the Australian Red Cross say’s, “All we can do is hope that people out there will be as generous and do it as selflessly as Harrison.”
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