I was about to sign up, but I am disqualified due to my fibromyalgia, which they consider an auto-immune disorder. I didn't think the current research still considered it one - it's more a neurotransmitter imbalance than anything else.
Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
61–70 of 101 posts
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#62"At the time, the only way to donate marrow was to basically have someone drill holes in your bones and drain your skeleton, which kind of terrified me. Nowadays, of course, most donations require nothing more than sitting still for a few hours with an IV watching television." That actually isn't really true. Marrow donations still require anesthesia and a surgical procedure. In the interest of providing full informa…
>why in the world would you vote this down?
Because it's spreading misinformation that could prevent people from becoming marrow donors.
As a way of balancing this, here: http://marrow.org/Home.aspx
They'll send you a free kit. You swab your cheek, mail it back, and then you're in the registry.
Take five of your minutes and give them to somebody that needs them.
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#63Ouch. To the extent it's still relevant in the modern world, our postal system really needs to work a little more like the phone system. I can be pretty much anywhere in the US (or really, the world, if I want to pay international roaming fees), someone can dial my well-known phone number, and my phone will ring. For ordinary first class mail, I should be able to generate unique ID numbers on the USPS's website, and…
AFAICT, mail forwarding is done by the local post office that would have delivered the mail. So mail headed to CA gets to your local CA post office, gets a yellow sticker on it, and gets stuck back in the mail. Mail originating in MA, destined for a CA, and forwarded to MA, does indeed cross the country twice. And routing loops loop, true story.
How do they submit forwarding updates to remote post offices? Well, they've already got an in-house network with QoS guarantees, so of course they use that. Yes, I'm referring to letter delivery itself - a good lesson in technology sticking around because it "works".
They do have a new service called "premium forwarding" or something where they want to gouge you something like $20/mo for making their life easier too (and to encourage you to use it, they take away the ability to update your normal forwarding online!). It's bureaucracy, perverse incentives abound! I've also heard (from a letter carrier) that the USPS is looking to stop Saturday delivery, so they've been holding back mail on Saturdays to justify it being a light day.
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#64"At the time, the only way to donate marrow was to basically have someone drill holes in your bones and drain your skeleton, which kind of terrified me. Nowadays, of course, most donations require nothing more than sitting still for a few hours with an IV watching television." That actually isn't really true. Marrow donations still require anesthesia and a surgical procedure. In the interest of providing full informa…
>why in the world would you vote this down? Because it's spreading misinformation that could prevent people from becoming marrow donors. As a way of balancing this, here: http://marrow.org/Home.aspx They'll send you a free kit. You swab your cheek, mail it back, and then you're in the registry. Take five of your minutes and give them to somebody that needs them.
Because it's spreading misinformation that could prevent people from becoming marrow donors.
It might prevent people from becoming donors, sure, but it's not misinformation. You may think that the risks are small relative to the benefit provided, but you shouldn't pretend (or try to convince others) that there are none.
Take five of your minutes and give them to somebody that needs them.
It takes five minutes to register. It clearly takes more than that to actually donate. You're not doing anyone a service attempting to conceal this fact.
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#65This inspired me to register, but once again I was thwarted by the US' arcane rule banning gay men from donating. The rule applies despite the fact that I've been monogamous for ages and am tested for everything under the sun twice a year. A college frat boy who has had unprotected sex with a different girl every week for the past semester can give blood/marrow, but monogamous, healthy gay men can't. I don't get it.
It is the same shit for blood donations in Denmark. They got pretty unpopular when they asked for more donors because they feared a shortage but then turned away the gay men. And no, it is not for health issues because they don't turn away gay women. Of course you could register if you want to and then if called upon show up eagerly with your partner for moral support. Then flat out ask if they are going to kill thei…
> And no, it is not for health issues because they don't turn away gay women.
Wait, doesn't that exactly refute your point? Presumably, gay men and gay women have different health profiles, whereas they have similar "moral" profiles to an up-tight conservative. I think the statement makes more sense like:
> And no, it is not for moral issues because they don't turn away gay women.
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#66This inspired me to register, but once again I was thwarted by the US' arcane rule banning gay men from donating. The rule applies despite the fact that I've been monogamous for ages and am tested for everything under the sun twice a year. A college frat boy who has had unprotected sex with a different girl every week for the past semester can give blood/marrow, but monogamous, healthy gay men can't. I don't get it.
It's the same reason they tested me for STDs when I got pregnant, even though I married a virgin as a virgin and we have been faithful forever. It's not about what you believe about yourself and your partner. It's about the statistics.
Someone else's life is on the line. They need to be sure.
Though I must admit, I'm surprised the policy is in place with marrow donations. With blood donations, sure, transfusions are a routine thing and your blood is highly replaceable. With marrow donations, though, someone may need your marrow or they'll die. I'd think a match, even if it carried a slight statistical chance of HIV, would be something they'd want to know about.
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#67If any of you are in Seattle, and want to become registered marrow donors and potentially help save a life, there is a swabbing party tonight at the Rob Roy in Belltown.
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
It appears to not have been the post office that "did better than any phone provider would": > Did you know that, when the marrow donation center finds a > match, they try desperately to reach the potential donor? Even > if that person has moved from their dorm room long ago, even if > their contact information has changed, even if they’re in a > different state, even if 16 years have passed? They try. They > look al…
They succeeded in sending mail to his last known address, which was his old company. He simply failed to set up forwarding from there (although he tried, it apparently didn't work) and didn't pay attention to what get sent there. The phone equivalent would have tried his dorm and that would have been that. He never would have even known that they had tried to contact him.
Wouldn't the phone equivalent be them calling his office number and leaving a message? It seems like they looked up his name and when they found a hit, they found his office and his office address. Surely there would also have been a similar process looking up his last known phone number if they determined he no longer used whatever number he gave them?
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the United States, gay men[1] account for 49% of HIV positive people according to the CDC. Gay women do not account for at least 2% of the HIV positive population and so are excluded from the most recent CDC fact sheet[2]. So, gay men and women may be treated very differently by health officials with some valid reason. [1]The CDC actually tracks the objective category "men who have sex with men", and not the fuzzy…
Half the people with HIV might be gay, but half the gay people don't have HIV. The statistic you quoted is not the one we need to ascertain whether the reason for turning them down is valid or not.
Actually, it's the right one. What you want to reduce is the incidence of infected people in the donor pool.
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/incidence.htm
CDC estimates MSM represent approximately 2% of the US
population, but accounted for more than 50% of all new
HIV infections annually from 2006 to 2009.
Re: Saving a Life is Easy, But I Didn't
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Half the people with HIV might be gay, but half the gay people don't have HIV. The statistic you quoted is not the one we need to ascertain whether the reason for turning them down is valid or not.
Actually, it's the right one. What you want to reduce is the incidence of infected people in the donor pool. http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/incidence.htm CDC estimates MSM represent approximately 2% of the US population, but accounted for more than 50% of all new HIV infections annually from 2006 to 2009. If you can drop your incidence of HIV by 50% while reducing the pool size by only 2%, you've improved…
That's a different statistic, isn't it.