Students organize bone marrow drive
Next week, student groups will sponsor the first on-campus bone marrow drive. A committee of concerned students organized and promoted the two-day event, to be held on Wednesday, November 7 in the Gargoyle and Thursday, November 8 in Friedman Lounge.
WU alumnae Marla Esser and sophomore Christy Kaiser lead the committee. Esser’s neighbors have two children, ages four and six, who both contracted Fanconi Anemia, a life-threatening disease that can only be combated by a bone marrow transplant. Esser has initiated over eight drives during the past year since learning of the children’s condition.
The WU drive is Esser’s first student-run project; she ran others through neighborhood churches. Esser first discussed the WU drive when Leadershape organizers asked her to speak at their leadership retreat regarding the drives she organized.
“A group of enthusiastic students came up after my lecture and wanted to hold a drive a WU, and that’s where it all began,” said Esser. “We hope to use the WU drive as a model for other student-run bone marrow drives.”
With Esser acting mainly as a consultant and a liaison between students and sponsors, the students found multiple sponsors, raised money and created a website. They organized the drive through the Heart of America Bone Marrow Registry, a national organization operating to register donors and locate matches for patients.
Students For Life, Golden Key and the Pre-Medical Society are among student groups sponsoring the drive. So far the groups have raised over $2,500 for the event, but have fallen short of their $6,000 goal.
Unlike blood drives, in which the federal government supplies money for supplies, staff, and equipment, each blood sample needed to register as a bone marrow donor costs approximately $75.
To cover the costs of the expensive donation process, organizers are asking for $5 from each student and $21 from staff and faculty who attend the bone marrow drive. Kaiser expects to get around 300 students and staff registered at the drive.
Because the federal government wants to diversify the registry, it will be paying for samples and tests of any ethnic minorities including African Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Hispanics and Native Americans.
Healthy individuals between the ages of 18 and 60 are eligible to donate bone marrow.
To become eligible, donors first need to have samples of their blood drawn. The blood is then tested for diseases and antibodies. Information from these tests will be entered into a nationwide database, and if a match is found, the donor will be called and asked to go through the bone marrow surgery. Individuals are in no way required to make the donation.
“The chances that a person will be called are slim. Most people are never called during their whole lifetime,” said Kaiser.
The Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center said donating bone marrow, or “harvesting,” requires the donor to be under local or general anesthesia. Doctors make several small incisions over the pelvic bone, then insert a needle through the incisions to draw marrow from the bone. The procedure takes about an hour, and the patient can return home that day, experiencing only minor discomfort and soreness in the hip for about a week.
Since only a small amount of bone marrow is removed, there is no significant risk for the donor, whose body can reproduce the amount of removed bone marrow in about three weeks.
Every year there are over a thousand adults and children who need bone marrow transplants, and nearly 70 percent are unable to receive one because a donor cannot be found. For most patients, there is a one in 20,000 chance of finding a matching donor.
“Bone marrow donating is one of three ways to save a life while you are living,” said Esser, noting the other two as donating blood and donating a kidney.
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