Last summer Jon Stewart, host of the popular Daily Show, urged fellow New Yorkers to show up for a bone marrow drive. He took action after learning that a fan who was fighting leukemia was having no luck find a bone marrow donor for a transplant needed to save his life. Ira Riklis, who’s been registered on a list of potential donors for years, knows this story only too well. Matching bone marrow donors with potential recipients is orders of magnitude harder than matching blood types. To be successful, a very close match with someone from a similar demographic and ethnic background must be found.
Although there are seven-million people registered in a national database of those willing to donate, none were close to the patient in this case. This is one reason why Ira Riklis urges people to register as donors: the more people who register, the more likely a match can be found for people in need. It’s easy to register, you’ll find the info you need online at sites like the National Bone Marrow program. And while just one in two hundred on register ever get called to donate, if you are called upon know that the actual procedure is simple and relatively minor.