CMV Negative
I learned something new yesterday, beyond a new approach to pasta. I received email thanking me for donating blood the previous Thursday. The Blood Center made a special note that my blood was CMV negative; that is, it lacks the antigen labeled CMV, which appears after contracting a particular illness. This absence is important for two reasons: first, that only ten percent or so of the population are CMV negative, and second, that all blood transfused into newborns must be CMV negative. The letter didn’t go deeply into technical detail, but I gather that newborn children haven’t had exposure to the original virus, and are likely to have a negative reaction to CMV positive blood.
Knowing that my blood is even more useful than I had originally thought – O+ is in particularly strong demand – gave me a moment’s cheer. It also got me wondering whether blood banks make dozens, or even thousands, of biochemical discriminations of blood type, the better to find a special plea to make when it comes time to remind a donor that eight weeks have passed since the last donation. “Dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. Doe: in this time of depleted blood reserves, your blood is especially important, because it has a low XYZ count. We hope you will consider…” Perhaps a donor can’t fail to be noteworthy in some way.
The thought didn’t really dampen my enthusiasm for a distinction I did nothing to earn. I’m saving baby’s lives.
Larry Niven explored the possibility of advanced donor matching in a series of alarmist stories, including “The Jigsaw Man,” “The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton,” A Gift From Earth, and The Patchwork Girl. In these stories, he proposes a world in which transplants are fantastically cheap and reliable, and in which a voting public eager for a chance at life-extending transplants call for ever broader definition of capital crimes, the better to harvest criminals’ organs. They’re all fun reads, if sociologically implausible. But if you do read them on the strength of my endorsement, don’t let them dissuade you from anything.
This is important. We need more blood. If you’re eligible – and many more are eligible than donate – it’s your civic duty to help out. One hour every two months isn’t too much to ask for saving lives. Think about it: all you’ve got to do to save a life is endure a puncture no more painful than a shaving cut, while somebody else does all the hard work. And you get a cookie afterwards. Forgetting is not an excuse. Once you’re on the rolls, the blood center will send you reminders. But you’ve got to go in on your own, the first time. Google your state’s blood drive page right now, and make an appointment, or find out when you can drop in, and mark your calendar.
Go on, you can do it.