I read a great Associated Press story today that is in The Seattle Times entitled "American girl adopted in China meets her bone-marrow donor."  The little girl had been found abandoned in china and was taken to an orphanage, where she lived for a year before being adoped by Americans, Owen and Linda Wells from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

After the little girl turned 5, she got aplastic anemia and needed a bone marrow transplant.  In 2003 they went to China to see if they could find a match.  In 2005 they found a candidate but it was not a perfect match and it was not successful.  There was another transplant the same year that also was not a perfect match.

In February they found a doctor from the eastern city of Hangzhou that became their donor and it has been a successful transplant.  The family is "spending Christmas in China and want to help recruit marrow donors."

The article states:  "The number of China's registered bone-marrow donors has grown from tens of thousands in 2003 to 700,000 today, thanks to increased understanding of the procedure.

'More people need to have basic knowledge of it. Now they feel horror when they hear about marrow donation,' said Hong Junling, director of the Red Cross Society's blood and stem-cell program. "They need to know there's no harm to their health."

Many people do not understand that different ethnic groups can only match with their own ethnic group.  It is very important that the bone marrow pool get larger from all ethnic groups.  If you are healthy, I would encourage you to get on the bone marrow registry.  All you need to do is go to the blood center and give a blood sample.  There are still many people that die because they cannot find a match in time.

I am giving you the link to the Seattle, King County Blood Center, in case you want to book an appointment to get on the registry or just find out more about the program.  I received a call two days ago that they are very low on blood so I am going today to donate that.

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