The ‘Golden Arm’ Rests
He’s made over 1,100 blood donations across six decades, saving the lives of 2.4 million babies in the process.
But a few weeks ago, at the age of 81, Australian James Harrison, known as “the man with the golden arm,” officially made his last donation, Newsweek reported.
Nicknamed for his charitable contributions to the medical field, Harrison unwillingly retired when doctors advised him to stop donating for his own health.
But it’s not just his selflessness that makes Harrison special: Harrison’s plasma contains a rare antibody combination that can be harnessed to create a powerful treatment against rhesus D hemolytic disease of the newborn.
It’s a disorder in which a mother’s body perceives her fetus’s blood cells as an invading threat due to differing blood types and produces antibodies to kill off the invader. The disease can result in stillbirths and miscarriages, or deformities such as deafness, blindness or brain damage.
“Every ampule of anti-D ever made in Australia has James in it” since 1967, Robyn Barlow, the treatment program coordinator who recruited Harrison, told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Given all he’s accomplished and his altruism, Harrison said his last donation was bittersweet.
“It’s a sad day for me,” he told the Sydney newspaper. “The end of a long run.”
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