Today's Platelet Donation and A Call To Arms

Today I was once again blessed to have a successful 68 Minute Triple Unit platelet donation. This donation was dedicated to the memory of those persons who, because of the actions of one person's pen this week, will never have the chance at the life that The Lord intended them to have.

I also learned that my regional Red Cross is no longer actively recruiting female platelet donors. No one at the donor center was able to tell me why. I had to power up my google-fu to get to the bottom of this.

The reason is that between 50 and 200 persons a year die because they receive transfusions of plasma or platelet products (platelets are naturally suspended in plasma) that come from women who are leukocyte-alloimmunized. These deaths are caused by something called TRALI . I'm that last thing resembling Ms Science so please read the link instead.

Why is this etiology is particular to women? Because Pregnancy is known to result in the development of leukocyte antibodies in a significant proportion of women.

That there is probably 20% of the platelet donating cadre my salty pups. There are screening tests - but even then there is a projected loss of 6% of the donor population. Not every multiparous woman develops the HLA I and II antibodies - but the powers that be have deemed it significant enough to cease recruitment of women.

But there are tests that can show whether or no a woman is leukocyte-alloimmunized. And while my regional RC says it's not that they are turning away female platelet donors, they are just not actively recruiting; so a woman can self elect to donate and She Will Be Tested for the antibodies to guarantee safety of the product.

And so a quite literal Call To Arms:

Mothers: Get yourselves in there now to donate while you still are not summarily dismissed because FDA bureaucrats have decided it is in some perverted idea of "the national interest" to change guidelines. Of this moment, your blood will be tested for all sorts of stuff that is good to know anyhow. And if you happen to test as CMV negative? You will be a "mother" to more babies than you'll ever know.

Mulieris Nulligravidae: We've been called spinsters, we've been told that we are not fulfillng our true nature as women, we've been called feckess, self-indulgent, and self-centered. When people ask me why I have no children, I can hold out my arms and say "Whatever do you mean by that, oh thou scrofulous prying jackanapes?" But get in there for your first donation asap because one never knows what the newly established establishment will summarily bar donations of platelets and/or plasma from all women.

Men: For the love of the mothers who bore you - man up!


that is all......