2008 Woodie Awards
Looking for the perfect match
Minority marrow drive to be held for young child
Ryan Baladad
Issue date: 12/14/06 Section: News
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Early Childhood specialist, Michelle St. Germaine, has initiated this righteous cause for her friend's two-year-old son, Harrison Padua Leonardo, who was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia earlier this year.
Harrison needs an immediate matched bone marrow donation to save his life.
"We wanted to get this done before the break," said St. Germaine, "Melinda Matsuda at Student Services was very helpful. They got it put together."
In conjunction with the Student Health Center, the Asian American Donor Program will be on site to organize the drive and register potential bone marrow/blood cell donors. Funding for this event is provided by the National Marrow Donor Program.
According to AADP's Web site, www.aadp.org, there are 6.1 million potential bone marrow/blood cell donors in the National Registry, as of April 2006.
The majority of the registry is composed of Caucasians. Only 6.6 percent is made up of Asian/Pacific Islanders and about the same for other ethnicities.
For this reason alone, the AADP and NMDP strongly en-courage minorities to register as a bone marrow/blood cell donor.
With every registrant comes the increased possibility to save someone's life. Outreach coordinator, Joan Yamamoto said, "Racial background is expressed in your tissue."
She continues by further explaining that each donor has a unique set of tissues, comparing eye color in the process.
For the case of young Harri-son, it is even more difficult to find a donor because he is biracial. His father, OJ Padua Leonardo, a San Francisco fire-fighter, is Filipino and his mother, Stephanie Isaacson, a PG&E public affairs representative, is Caucasian.
Because Harrison is Fili-pino-Caucasian, theoretically, his donor would also have to be of the same mix, striking his parents and others of one ethnic background from being potential donors.
Harrison's devoted parents and the admirable organizations have been trying to find a match for several months now.
Just recently, Harrison and his family have been featured on TV and in a few publications, such as KGO-TV 7 and the San Francisco Chronicle.
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