FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Critical Need for Minority Bone Marrow Donors Hits Home for Local Residents

MARCH 6, 2002, SEATTLE — Because of the critical need for ethnic minority bone marrow donors, The Puget Sound Blood Center, City of Bellevue Cultural Diversity Program, and Crossroads Shopping Center are sponsoring two upcoming drives. The registration drives will be held at Crossroads Shopping Center in Bellevue on Sat., March 9 from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and again on Sun., March 17 from 12:00 Noon to 4:00 PM Crossroads Shopping Center is located at the corner of NE 8th and 156th Ave. NE.

Donor recruiters from the Puget Sound Blood Center will be on hand to facilitate the registration and answer questions. The testing process itself only takes about 15 minutes and involves filling out a form and having a blood sample taken.

The urgency of this situation has become highly personal for three local residents. Nicole, 4 years old; Jerry, 34; and Linda, 27, although different ethnicities, share a common dilemma. Each suffers from a potentially fatal blood disease, and for all three, their only hope for a cure is a bone marrow transplant. None have been able to find a bone marrow match on the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry. According to Kevin Henry, Program Coordinator of the City of Bellevue’s Cultural Diversity Program, “The more people that are informed about this situation, the more likely it is that matches will be found for those that need them. Many people are not aware of this medical problem facing people of color.”

Nicole and Linda, both battling leukemia, and Jerry, fighting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, have exhausted all other treatment options. Unfortunately, none of their family members tested positive as potential matches, and all now need to find an unrelated donor match. Each is aware that it would take just one person—the right person—to possibly save their lives.

For little Nicole, who is half-Japanese, the odds are the harshest—only 2% of donors are registered as "Multi-Racial" and would be likely be potential matches for her. For Jerry, an African-American man, the odds are slightly higher, but still dismal—only 8% of the registered donors are African-American. Linda faces similar challenge as a Korean woman—her group of potential matches is approximately 6% of the total donor pool.

For more information about this issue, please contact the Puget Sound Blood Center at 1-800-266-4033 or at www.psbc.org.

Note to Editor: Please contact Kevin Henry or Keith Warnack if you would like to talk to the three people mentioned in this release.

To learn more about Nicole, Linda and Jerry, visit their websites:

• www.helpnicole.org
• www.savinglinda.org
• www.savejerry.org

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