The man who saved the lives of two million children has died

 

Blood donor James Harrison, who saved the lives of two million children, has died in his sleep in a nursing home at the age of 88, the BBC reported, citing his family.

Australian James Harrison is known in his homeland as “the man with the golden arm.” This is due to the fact that his blood contains rare antibodies that prevent Rh-conflict between mother and fetus.

Harrison regularly donated blood throughout his life until 2018, when doctors forbade him from doing so for medical reasons. In total, he donated his plasma 1,173 times, an achievement that earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Medicines created from Harrison's plasma are believed to have saved the lives of more than 2.4 million children, including the Australian's own grandson.

Harrison's daughter, Tracy Mellowship, said her father took great pride in his work.

How it all began

As a teenager, James Harrison underwent surgery to remove a lung; for this purpose, he received a blood transfusion.

"I don't even know exactly how many people I didn't know saved my life ," Harrison recalls.

He made a promise to himself that he would donate blood regularly. And indeed, at the age of 18, he began donating blood to the Australian Red Cross.

In the 1960s, Australian doctors began looking for a way to combat the country's high infant mortality rate.

"Up until 1967, thousands of babies were dying every year in Australia and no one could figure out why," says Australian Red Cross spokeswoman Gemma Falkenmayer. " Women were having repeated miscarriages, children were being born with brain damage."

Doctors concluded that the cause lies in the negative Rh factor – the lack of antigen D in the blood of some women.

During pregnancy, they may have an Rh conflict with the fetus, whose Rh factor is positive: the woman's body begins to produce antibodies that seek to destroy the "hostile" blood cells of the fetus.

This causes hemolytic disease in infants and can lead to the death of the baby before birth. In Australia, Rh incompatibility occurs in 17% of pregnant women.

Scientists discovered that the disease could be prevented by injecting anti-Rhesus immunoglobulin, which is isolated from human blood plasma.

They began searching blood banks for a suitable donor and found Harrison.

By this time, he had been a blood donor for ten years. He was offered the opportunity to participate in an experimental program to develop a treatment – ​​and he immediately agreed.

"They asked me to be a guinea pig, and from then on I started donating blood constantly," he recalls.

The first injection of anti-Rhesus immunoglobulin, created from the blood of James Harrison, was given to a pregnant woman in 1967.

The drug's development program coordinator, Robin Barlow, says there is "a piece of James" in every vial made in Australia.

"He saved millions of children. It makes me cry thinking about it," Barlow admits.