In Marrow Drive, Cancer Society Seeks Minorities

The Harvard Cancer Society’s two-day minority bone marrow drive began yesterday, aiming to decrease the gap between Caucasian and minority registered volunteer donors in its semi-annual campaign.

According to Melissa B. Herrmann ’04, the society’s president, only 20 percent of registered donors are classified as minorities.

She said the drive focuses on recruiting minority donors because differences in cultural norms and beliefs—particularly those of Native Americans and Asian Americans— cause reluctance among members of these communities to become donors.

“Due to certain customs and religions, many Asians aren’t as willing,” said Grace C. Cho ’05, a volunteer for the drive. “For example, many Asian families refuse to talk about sicknesses, and other family members don’t even know bone marrow is needed.”

Students don’t actually donate bone marrow at the drive. Instead, they complete paperwork to join the National Bone Marrow Registry and give a drop of blood from their finger so they become potential donors.

The chance that potential donors will actually go on to donate is about 25 to 30 percent, said drive coordinator Adrienne Harrison. That will happen if a student’s HLA type—the type of tissue needed by bone marrow patients—matches that of a patient listed in the registry.

Two people of the same ethnicity are the most likely to have matching HLA types after family members, Herrmann said.

Yesterday, about a dozen students entered the registry. Herrmann said they expect about 40 by the drive’s end this afternoon.

“A bone marrow drive is not really like a blood drive because we’re not looking for quantity, such as a certain number of people to donate a certain amount of blood, but for a good quality donor,” Herrmann said. “We need donors who will stay committed, keep in touch and follow through.”

Herrmann added that students should not be fearful of the process.

“The biggest myth about the drive is that it is an incredibly painful thing,” she said. “Not true.”

The drive, also sponsored by the Asian American Brotherhood and the Lambda Upsilon chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, continues today in the Loker Green Room between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.