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MARCH 2004

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Bringing Back Life

Organ, Bone Marrow Donation Program This touching story shows the importance one person can make in another's life.

www.themarrowfoundation.org

On Wednesday, February 11, two women related by generosity, genetics and good fortune met for the first time during the national press launch for the seventh annual Saturn National Donor Day (SNDD). SNDD has significantly impacted donor awareness and helped many patients get their second chance at life since its inception in 1998.

SNDD is America’s largest annual one-day life-saving donation drive. In the first six years, more than 450 Saturn retailers informed millions of Americans of the need for organ and tissue donors, added over 8,000 potential marrow and blood stem cell donors to the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Registry, and collected approximately 48,000 units of blood. Saturn of Gainesville, in cooperation with local donor organizations and area media, was the number one retailer in the United States for SNDD 2003, with more than 600 units of blood collected.

Leigh Anne Marshall, a Gainesville resident who has signed her organ/tissue donor card and regularly gives blood, joined the NMDP Registry at her local blood center because “it was an opportunity to help another person.” In 2001, that opportunity became a reality when LifeSouth Community Blood Centers contacted her for additional testing, LifeSotith Community Blood Centers is a donor center of the NMDP serving Gainesville and its surrounding areas.

Marshall successfully donated marrow for a leukemia patient, literally saving Mandy Burlison’s life. Burlison lives in New York State and has relatives in Florida near Marshall. Although they have written to each other, they will meet for the first time on February 11, during the national press launch for the seventh annual SNDD.

Marshall said she would encourage others to join the NMDP Registry, “There is nothing to it. Being the donor is the easiest part.”

Burlison said of her leukemia diagnosis in 1999, “I was overwhelmed. It felt as if my entire life, everything I loved, was pushed away so far; I was unable to reach nor touch it.” Over the next year, she experienced everything “as if it were the last. And now words can’t describe the gratitude I feel for Leigh Anne, she gave me life.”

About 30,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with life-threatening diseases potentially treatable by marrow or blood stem cell transplants, and twothirds will not find a donor match in their family. There is an urgent need for more Black and African Americans, American Indian and Alaska Natives, Asians, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, Hispanic or Latinos as potential volunteer marrow or blood stem cell donors on the NMDP Registry. If you are African American, AsianlPacific Islander, Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native, consider becoming a committed volunteer donor on the Registry.

Valentine’s Day is a day to give from the heart. In the days leading up to February 14, SNDD donor drives and educational activities are scheduled across the nation. Since community calendars vary, visit your local Saturn retailer or call your local donor centers and ask how you can join Saturn and donor organizations across the country in saving lives.

Approximately 80,000 Americans await a life-saving organ transplant and an average of 18 die every day because a donor is not found in time. Blood transfusions save 10,000 Americans daily, and while 60 percent of Americans are eligible to donate blood, only five percent do so. Without a ready supply of donated blood, marrow transplants like Burlison’s can’t happen.

In 1997, with Saturn UAW as a major sponsor, LifeSouth Community Blood Centers founded the Five Points of Life program, the first program to combine the five ways of sharing life with others through donation. Life- South is a nonprofit volunteer blood center that supplies blood components to more than 110 medical facilities in Alabama, Florida and Georgia. Life- South is licensed by the FDA, accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks, a charter member of the NMDP and is a member of America’s Blood Centers and AABB. For more information, visit www.lifesouth.org.

The National Marrow Donor Program ® (NMDP) is committed to its global mission to extend and improve life through innovative stem cell therapies. Through its extensive U.S. and international network, the NMDP maintains the world’s largest and most diverse Registry of more than 5 million potential volunteer marrow and blood stem cell donors, including more than 25,000 cord blood units. The NMDP also provides resources for patients and physicians, and conducts research to improve the outcomes of stem cell transplantation. The NMDP has facilitated more than 15,000 transplants throughout the world for patients with life-threatening diseases such as leukemia and aplastic anemia, as well as certain immune system and genetic disorders. The NMDP offers searching patients, who do not have suitable family donors, a single point of access for all three types of stem cells used in transplantation: marrow, peripheral blood stem cells and umbilical cord blood. For more information about the National Marrow Donor Program, visit www.mairow.org or call l-800-MARROW- 2.

The Marrow Foundation® secures resources from the private sector to support the work of the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP). The Marrow Foundation and the NIVIDP share the following goals: to sponsor research to improve the understanding and outcome of unrelated marrow and blood stem cell transplantation on a worldwide basis; to assist patients with uninsured financial needs; and to increase the diversity of the NMDP’s Registry of unrelated marrow and blood stem cell donors. Located in Washington, D.C., The Marrow Foundation was created in 1991 by Admiral E.R. Zumwalt Jr., an early proponent of a national bone marrow donor registry. For more information about The Marrow Foundation, visit www.themarrowfoundation.org or call (202) 638-6601.