James Harrison Blood Donor

Antibody in donor's blood has cave 2 million babies

 

By Roz Zurko
Examiner.com

James Harrison found out quite by accident that his blood carried a rare antibody NTD that fights a disease killing thousands of babies each year. Now his blood is the base for all the treatments of Rhesus disease in Australia!

James Harrison made a promise to himself when he was 14, which was during a time that he was undergoing an operation that removed a lung. During that procedure he received 13 units of life-saving blood, so he promised when he turned 18-years-old he'd become a regular blood donor, according to ABC News on June 10.

He followed through on that promise that he made back in 1951 and when he first donated doctors noticed something miraculous within Harrison's blood. He had an antibody to NTD. Harrison's blood actually stopped Rhesus disease, in which a pregnant woman's blood attacks her unborn baby's blood cells. With the antibody in Harrison's blood, babies didn't have to die or be severely impaired from this disease.

According to Good Housekeeping, when Harrison started donating "a serious problem that affected thousands of Australian women and their babies was on the rise." When doctors realized James had the antibody NTD in his blood, it was only a matter of time before they came up with a revolutionary treatment for the day, which is still used today. Up until 1967 babies died or were severely impaired by Rhesus, but that has ended thanks to Harrison and his miracle blood.

The doctors in Australia were the first to find a donor with this antibody and Harrison has worked with the doctors to develop a treatment for Rhesus which was killing the babies, causing miscarriages and causing brain damage in children. When Australian doctors discovered Harrison's antibody it was "quite revolutionary at the time," said Jemma Falkenmire of the Australian Red Cross.

Today Harrison is called the "man with the golden arm" because of the millions of babies his blood is credited with saving over his lifetime of blood donations. He made is 1,101 donation recently, but he donates every three weeks, which is the time a person much wait in between blood donations. Harrison's treatment has saved over 2 million babies to date, according to the Australian Red Cross.

Each batch of NTD made in Australia has come from the blood of Harrison. He is a man who doesn't see himself as a hero, he sees himself like everyone else who donates blood. Harrison said, "It's something I can do. It's one of my talents, probably my only talent, is that I can be a blood donor."