Congressman Young Leads Appeal for More Americans to Give the Gift of Life

Priorities are Increasing Diversity in Donor Registry, Continued Congressional Funding

Congressman Bill Young (R-FL), representatives of the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry, The Marrow Foundation^® and 40 marrow and blood stem cell donors, recipients and family members today urged more Americans, particularly minorities, to join the National Marrow Donor Program Registry and called upon Members of Congress to support funding of the National Marrow Donor Program^® (NMDP), which operates the Registry.

With Young's leadership, Congress passed legislation in 1986 to create the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry that to date has matched nearly 15,000 patients with volunteer donors who were committed to saving a life. Since it became operational in 1987, the Registry has grown to more than 4.5 million volunteer donors, but more are needed, according to Young and the others who joined him at the Capitol Hill press conference. Young became involved with the NMDP when the child of a constituent needed an unrelated donor match and no national registry of volunteers existed.

"Because the chances of finding a matched, unrelated donor for the estimated 3,000 people who are searching the Registry today is only about 83 percent, we need a large and ethnically diverse registry of volunteers," Young said. "While it is possible for a match to occur between members of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, the most likely match is with someone from the same background, and right now, minority groups comprise only 25 percent of volunteer donors."

Through NMDP's educational and recruitment efforts, large numbers of minority groups came forward to answer the call for volunteer donors, according to Dr. Jeffrey Chell, CEO of the NMDP. "The rise in minority volunteer donors, over the past decade, has improved the likelihood of identifying a matched potential donor for minority patients. In fact, the number of transplants performed for minority patients has nearly tripled since 1995. Despite this increase, however, minorities are still less likely than Caucasians to identify a matched donor," Chell said.

Leandra Argyros, a 13-year-old marrow recipient from Florida who also spoke at the press event, said, "My volunteer donor is a part of me. If she had changed her mind about being a donor, I wouldn't be here today. Everyone should sign up to be a bone marrow donor because so many kids need to have a transplant and don't have a donor. Not everyone is as lucky as me to have found a match."

"As a mother, I was able to give birth to my son but couldn't save his life. That was heartbreaking for me. I also had the added burden of knowing the difficulty of finding an African-American donor match. At that time, the chance of finding one was only 40 percent," Kesha Pickett said about her son Derrick DeVose, whose life was saved by volunteer donor, Thedius Thompson. "Five years after the transplant, Derrick is doing extremely well and we are eternally grateful to the NMDP and their work to match unrelated donors to patients in need."

Young also noted that Congress must also do its part to support the NMDP through the annual appropriations process, by the reauthorization of the bill that created the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry, and a House resolution introduced later today by Young and Congressman Ed Towns (D-NY), which honors the NMDP for its hard work and designates November 2002 as National Marrow Awareness Month.

The NMDP facilitates unrelated donor stem cell transplants for people with life threatening blood diseases who do not have a matching donor in their families. Since 1986, the program has provided transplants for people with diseases such as leukemia and aplastic anemia as well as certain immune system and genetic disorders. Currently, the NMDP makes more than 150 transplants possible each month.

The NMDP manages all patient searches, tracks detailed patient history and maintains the searchable Registry. The NMDP's award-winning STAR^® system provides clinicians with immediate access to donor search results. It connects its Minneapolis, MN Coordinating Center with its international network of Donor, Collection and Transplant Centers, as well as tissue typing laboratories and NMDP Repositories.

"We rely on committed donors and support from a number of agencies and organizations to fulfill our mission to save lives through transplantation. The funding we receive from the federal government is used to recruit donors, educate patients and expand research. Those who have donated know that because of their selfless act, a life may be saved through their marrow and blood stem cells," said Chell. "The commitment of donors, the support of the federal government, the hard work and dedication of staff at the NMDP's Network, at Donor Centers and Transplant Centers as well as staff at the NMDP have all contributed to the success of our program. So much has been done and we look forward to doing so much more."

The Marrow Foundation will honor Young Sept. 26 with an award for his dedication to raising support for the NMDP and enabling life saving marrow to be delivered around the world. American Airlines will also be honored with a Foundation award for the company's commitment to donor recruitment among its employees. In addition, Mark Kwalwasser, retired NY firefighter, will be recognized for creating the "Be Someone's Hero" program which has added more than 9,000 FDNY volunteers to the Registry.

The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) is committed to its mission to extend and improve life through innovative stem cell therapies. The NMDP has facilitated more than 14,500 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 and umbilical cord blood. Through its extensive U.S. and international Network, the NMDP manages the largest and most diverse Registry of volunteer donors, including more than 23,000 cord blood units. Matching donors to patients is only part of the NMDP's life-saving mission. The NMDP also provides support for patients and physicians and conducts research aimed at increasing opportunities for and improving the outcomes of stem cell transplants.

To learn more about becoming a marrow or blood stem cell donor, donating umbilical cord blood and other ways to help, please call (800) MARROW-2.

The Marrow Foundation was established in 1991 by Admiral E.R. Zumwalt Jr. to raise private support for the work of the NMDP. The Foundation's goals are to sponsor research to improve the understanding and outcome of marrow and blood stem cell transplantation worldwide, to assist patients with financial need in the process of searching the Registry for a marrow match, and to help increase the diversity of the Registry.

To find out about making a financial contribution, contact the Foundation at (202) 638-6601 or online at www.themarrowfoundation.org.