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Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

amitguptaneedsyou.com

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Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#81

Post by [deleted] »

zasz wrote: post #35
freemarketteddy wrote: post #9

I am a south asian male living in the US.I tried to sign up as a donor.Here is my experience. >Your password needs to be between 8 and 15 characters long, must contain at least 1 number and 1 letter and cannot contain spaces. Seriously WTF....I am sure half of the people who wanted to sign up did not just for this bs! Okay chill...password abcd...... > In the past 5 years have you taken money or drugs in exchange for…

It costs money to sequence DNA and calculate someone's ancestry. 23andMe loses money whenever it sells a kit. Are you seriously too lazy to save a nonprofit a few hundred bucks by spending 1 second to indicate your race? Also, every time I buy something at a store, I have to give them my addresses. Including my phone number and a few extra ways to contact me in case I move, and you know, someone is dying and needs my…

[deleted]

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#82

Post by cbr »

jeremymims wrote: post #24
freemarketteddy wrote: post #9

I am a south asian male living in the US.I tried to sign up as a donor.Here is my experience. >Your password needs to be between 8 and 15 characters long, must contain at least 1 number and 1 letter and cannot contain spaces. Seriously WTF....I am sure half of the people who wanted to sign up did not just for this bs! Okay chill...password abcd...... > In the past 5 years have you taken money or drugs in exchange for…

- Much of the reason for the secondary contact information is to ensure that if you are a match they have multiple ways to find you. - You may be a match for someone ten years down the line. Odds are that you won't be in exactly the same place with the exact same contact information. - It costs about $100 to do the analysis on each test. Therefore, if you provide additional information that may in some ways be redund…

> Much of the reason for the secondary contact information is to ensure that if you are a match they have multiple ways to find you.

None of which helps if you would have been a match but instead dropped out of their signup process.

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#83

Post by darrellsilver »

nostromo wrote: post #78

Since I'm still gay, I'm not allowed to help, no matter how many times you ask. I get why they do this and I shouldn't let it bother me, but emotionally it feels the same as if they just said, "Please become a donor, nohomo." edit: Of course I still wish the very best for Amit.

This is a huge problems -- been to a couple NYC amit events (thanks, New Work City!) -- and did my best to inform people. Same with donating blood.

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#84

Post by kevinelliott »

k3dz wrote: post #53
kevinelliott wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am ignoring those people. Amit's high profile presence has made me think about the problem more, but I have not gone out of my way to see if any other people might be in need. Sure, my registration in the database will help to match me against other people in need, but it doesn't inform me of people who are in need that I don't match. See, that's what I mean. I feel guilty that I can't tell others about the thousan…

thinking along these lines, around 6 million children under five die in developing countries each year from malnutrition and hunger-related diseases. [1] http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats

Yep, this is exactly where my guilt comes in. What am I doing to help any of those millions of starving children? Very little.

So many people have told me throughout my life that I need to just ignore it, and you can't save the world. I can't help but think that's just their way of trying to invalidate any guilt of their own, even if they're right that it's not possible to help everyone everywhere.

Though that's why I invest on Kiva, because I can help make an impact in a "starving" part of the world helping to build up economies so the people can take care of themselves, rather than solely relying on financial donations.

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#85

Post by mekoka »

zasz wrote: post #35
freemarketteddy wrote: post #9

I am a south asian male living in the US.I tried to sign up as a donor.Here is my experience. >Your password needs to be between 8 and 15 characters long, must contain at least 1 number and 1 letter and cannot contain spaces. Seriously WTF....I am sure half of the people who wanted to sign up did not just for this bs! Okay chill...password abcd...... > In the past 5 years have you taken money or drugs in exchange for…

It costs money to sequence DNA and calculate someone's ancestry. 23andMe loses money whenever it sells a kit. Are you seriously too lazy to save a nonprofit a few hundred bucks by spending 1 second to indicate your race? Also, every time I buy something at a store, I have to give them my addresses. Including my phone number and a few extra ways to contact me in case I move, and you know, someone is dying and needs my…

Also, every time I buy something at a store, I have to give them my addresses.

At which point you can simply say "no, I don't want to" and they'll still settle for your money.

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#86

Post by rdl »

blahedo wrote: post #67
cpher wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past 5 years have you taken money or drugs in exchange for sex?.. (Men only) In the past 5 years have you had sex, even once with another male? In the U.S., if you donate blood you are always asked this question, so this is completely acceptable. Do you really want the donation pool potentially contaminated by the HIV virus?

> Do you really want the donation pool potentially contaminated by the HIV virus? This is FUD. Gender of partner as an HIV risk factor is now much less predictive than a number of other risk factors that they do not check for; it is especially insulting to monogamous couples whose HIV risk is negligible. (The Red Cross is especially odious in this regard, as they are still asking this question not as "in the past 5 y…

If the goal is to reduce the risk of HIV (due to imperfect testing), if they're willing to ask offensive questions and discriminate, at least for blood, it is probably statistically valid to filter based on income/credit score, race, and zip code. I can only imagine how much uproar this would cause.

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#87

Post by acangiano »

jason_slack wrote: post #58

At the sake of sounding incredibly naive...Is it only South Asians that can help Amit? Being white, I would not have a potential match at all?

> Being white, I would not have a potential match at all?

You would be unlikely to, but it's not impossible. The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) tissue type Amit needs is just much, much more predominant among fellow South Asians.

You probably can't help Amit directly, but you can help someone else in a similar situation.

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#88

Post by corin_ »

nostromo wrote: post #78

Since I'm still gay, I'm not allowed to help, no matter how many times you ask. I get why they do this and I shouldn't let it bother me, but emotionally it feels the same as if they just said, "Please become a donor, nohomo." edit: Of course I still wish the very best for Amit.

Some progress has been made, in the UK now the (blood) ban only effects men who've had sex with men in the past 12 months, which is better.

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#89

Post by daenz »

ataggart wrote: post #54
daenz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But Amit could pay some criminal organization for that service right now If he could, why hasn't he then? In the link you pasted, why did so many people die awaiting transplants if was able to be obtained illegally right now? Surely they didn't want to die. I'm not sure I want to live in a world where the economically oppressed are pressured financially to give up body parts to the wealthy in order to survive. Just…

>If he could, why hasn't he then? I would suspect that he has some moral compunction against kidnapping people and killing them for their body parts. Regardless, you now seem to be implying the opposite claim from earlier. Is it that no longer prohibiting voluntary sales of organs (e.g., bone marrow) would result in an increase in such abductions/killings, or is it that such killings don't seem to happen despite the…

Tobu's response to you pretty much sums up my opinion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3297411

Your reply to him would help me see your side better, I think.

Re: Amit Gupta hasn't found a marrow transplant match; today's your last chance.

#90

Post by Mz »

nostromo wrote: post #78

Since I'm still gay, I'm not allowed to help, no matter how many times you ask. I get why they do this and I shouldn't let it bother me, but emotionally it feels the same as if they just said, "Please become a donor, nohomo." edit: Of course I still wish the very best for Amit.

They did a donor drive at work some months back. My genetic disorder disqualifies me, even though I'm fairly healthy and off all medication at this point. At the moment, I don't think it would be a good idea for me to donate marrow to anyone as I am still recovering my own health, but this means that even in the future when I may well be healthy enough to be willing and (physically) able, I will still be disqualified. Not sure how to feel about it.
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