Israel – Bone Marrow Donors Unequal Between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews

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    bone marrowIsrael – The chances of an Ashkenazi Jew finding a compatible bone marrow contribution in the three existing Israeli bone-marrow banks to treat certain cancers or other disorders are 75 percent, while for Sephardi Jews the odds are only 30% and for mixed Ashkenazi-Sephardi Jews 6% – with non-Jewish minorities even lower.

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    So said Dr. Bracha Zisser, head of the main bone marrow bank at Ezer Mizion. The Knesset Labor, Social Affairs and Health Committee, headed by MK Haim Katz (Likud), united private members’ bills by MKs Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi), Ze’ev Bielski (Kadima) and Amir Peretz (Labor) to arrange for and monitor the activities of the three tissue data banks and help them finance their operations.
    The data banks hold tissue-type information on 520,000 people, including soldiers.

    Three-quarters of patients needing bone marrow cannot get a compatible donation from a family member, so they must apply to the bone-marrow data bank to find a donor. Without a donor, such patients will die.

    MK Rahel Adatto (Kadima) noted that the government had found NIS 500 million for the purchase of H1N1 flu vaccine, but had not found money to finance bone-marrow data banks.
    Unless funding is found, a bill to ensure the existence of the banks cannot be passed, Katz said.


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    27 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Kind of intresting. As can easly be understood that Ashkenazim and Sephardim lived in different areas and didn’t intermary,and that makes it hard to find a match

    Can anyone explain why Sephardim have a smaller chance then Ashkenazim??

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    how will more money help matters? in any event, if you are young and healthy, please get your mouth swabbed at one of the centers- you could be the perfect match for someone who desperately needs it!

    Very Simple
    Very Simple
    14 years ago

    Over the last few years organizations like Gift of life in Florida and in Israel there is Ezer Metzion, have been getting tons of people to join the registry. So there are more matches to be made between healthy people and sick people. Amongs the Sephardic population it has not been as popular to join these data bases

    starwolf
    starwolf
    14 years ago

    Simply because there are fewer Sephardi donors. It’s a matter of disseminating information and outreach.

    By the way, outside of the Hareidi community, “intermarriage” rates in Israel between Ashkenazim and Separdim are quite high now.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Fewer donors. As a Sephardia I can’t explain it but it’s probably a different interpretation of Torah in part. Just a guess since I’m certainly not a Rav. I can tell you tho as an educated person and daughter of two doctors, I still have an intuitive aversion to ANY live organ donation, e.g. a kidney. I tend to believe that Hashem has everything in His hands for a purpose and that some things cannot be fathomed intellectually. I also believe that He didn’t make spare parts. We need them all, as has been shown by recent research on the appendix. We don’t know our futures and it is not for us to condemn ourselves to or risk death and choose to let another live thru drastic alteration of our G-d created bodies. That’s not Judaism, it’s christianity. That choice is G-d’s alone. He has the timetable.
    We need to reallocate that 500 million to research prevention of these diseases and forget H1N1 which has almost run its course from the looks of it.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    i don’t know too much about classification of data but what i do know is that when a member of the sephardic community in the tri state area needs a bone marrow transplant the lines to check for eligibility are long i have no clue if the bank the data or not maybe in israel it’s just not brought to light. we have ppl sitting in shul ready to swab your chhek as soon as you walk in. go figure but i;m sore it somehow all bils down to money/funding for awareness and swabing stations in said communities

    Harav Hagaon
    Harav Hagaon
    14 years ago

    According to Rabbi Berel Wein, and other historians, Ashkenazim all descend from a relatively small group of ancestors, so that over the course of a thousand years almost all Ashkenazim are related.

    Whereas Sefardi is a very loose term including a much wider gene pool. Sefardi can mean Morrocan, Persian, Syrian, Iraqi, Bucharian, etc. And sometimes even Yemenites are included. These groups are not necessarily closely related as the Ashkenazim, hence a much more diverse gene pool, and harder to find a match.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Wow! haven’t you read in your Torah that mind reading is avodah zara. You are wrong, wrong and wrong. What a terrible thing to say! You people are horrible. B”H I’ve never known anyone who needed a transplant. I’m not talking about invasiveness but since you are, you’re wrong. Read this excerpt from the Mayo Clinic

    “What you can expect
    By Mayo Clinic staff
    If HLA typing shows that you’re a good match, you’ll undergo some additional tests and an examination to make sure you don’t have any genetic or infectious diseases that can be passed on to the transplant recipient. Your doctor will also ask about your health and your family health history to determine whether donation will be safe for you.

    If blood stem cells are going to be collected directly from your blood, you will be given medication to stimulate production of blood stem cells so that more of them are circulating in your bloodstream. That way they can be easily filtered from your blood.

    The medication is typically given as an injection once a day for four days before and continuing through your donation. Your doctor will check your blood cell count. A nurse will determine which vein can be used for the donation process. If you have small veins in your arms or your veins have thin walls, you may need to have a central line put in a larger vein in your neck. This rarely causes side effects, but complications that can occur include air trapped between your lungs and your chest wall (pneumothorax), bleeding and infection.

    On the fifth day, the blood stem cells are collected from your blood using a process called apheresis. During apheresis, blood is drawn out through a vein in your arm or a central line and sent through a machine that filters out the blood stem cells. After the filtering, your blood is returned to your body. Apheresis takes four to six hours and is done on an outpatient basis. You’ll typically undergo two to four apheresis sessions, depending on how many blood stem cells are needed.”

    I say:
    A pneumothorax can be life threatening and needs surgery to correct it. Hardly the minimal risk of a routine CBC.
    While most drugs have a very high safety factor, some of us are extremely sensitive and cannot take many of even the most “innocuous” concoctions. I cannot take contrast medium for MRI it is considered almost inert.
    All medical procedures carry a certain amount of risk but if anyone told you this is no more problematic than routine blood work, You need a good malpractice attorney. While this is probably the safest transplant procedure for a living donor, please don’t dismiss it out of hand.
    When Mayo says “bleeding” they don’t mean a few drops. They’re talking bleeding out. Infections can be deadly in case you never heard of MERSA. Even more routine ones can kill if the pt. can’t take antibiotics. Another no-no for me. Even for one who can, if an infection goes systemic, that can be it. Very hard to manage even with modern drugs and the side effects of the infection can be devastating.

    And how dare you dishonor my parents who were great doctors who saved many people without the benefit of these new technologies. They would be very circumspect about encouraging patients risking pneumothorax and other serious side effects. A lot would depend on the prognosis for the one receiving the transplant. Remember when Mickey Mantel got his SECOND liver and died anyway a few weeks later having pickled himself in booze. What a waste of at least one good liver.

    Harav Hagaon
    Harav Hagaon
    14 years ago

    According to Rabbi Berel Wein, and other historians, Ashkenazim all descend from a relatively small group of ancestors, so that over the course of a thousand years almost all Ashkenazim are related.

    Whereas Sefardi is a very loose term including a much wider gene pool. Sefardi can mean Morrocan, Persian, Syrian, Iraqi, Bucharian, etc. And sometimes even Yemenites are included. These groups are not necessarily closely related as the Ashkenazim, hence a much more diverse gene pool, and harder to find a match.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Raphael, thank you for your gracious reply. If any will change my thinking it is yours. The only Jewish one I read here. I am ba’al chuva. I grew up in a non-observant family surrounded by goyim. Kol ha Kvod to all the chachamim here who were protected by their families to grow up frum. Not every Jew has that opportunity but if there is any hope for those of us who didn’t have that blessing, it is not coming from the stone throwers. I know what the rabbinical opinion is. I happen to disagree but maybe with more growth, I will change my opinion. As for Rambam on doctors, medicine has changed a lot since his day. I wonder what he would say about going to an HMO under Obama care or what he would advise an over 65 year old pt. to do about mandatory end of life counseling. As long as my doctors swear by the Greek Pantheon, I will use them sparingly and not trust them completely. Fortunately I have a Charedi doctor here.Oh yeah! He doesn’t go along with everything the secular med establishment in America preaches either.

    ## 20 and 22 Yes I’m for real and no I don’t need a psychiatrist. I don’t have REAL issues related to this topic. If you are referring to my last paragraph, do you not know how candidates are selected for transplant? There is a triage process. Mickey would never have qualified if he was a poor anonymous pt.
    When there is a shortage, the selection committee (bet you didn’t know about them, did you?) looks at things like, age, progress of disease, social factors including family support, finances and psychological profile, prognosis and quality of life to be achieved if the transplant is done. They assign points to each factor and you get your transplant or not based on score. Geography is unimportant. If someone in CA has a better score than your neighbor in BP, guess who gets the donation? This is for general donations, not designated ones.
    I suggest you all do some research on “utilization review” boards before putting yourselves or loved ones into hospital. It’s not only transplants that come under this scrutiny.
    As for you sir, #22 you and #20 et al need to review Chofetz Chaim and I suggest spending some time learning from Chabad how to mekarev someone to Orthodoxy. If I were less far along the derech, I would probably drop the whole thing thanks to all you lovely “religous.”
    And so soon after Yomim ha Noraim. Wonderful!

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    24, and 25. Believe as you wish. # 5 and #23 are the same person. Do you realize by your use of a double negative, 25, you are actually confirming that fact? I’m surprised you omitted #19 because it is also I who wrote that one. If I seem to ramble perhaps it is because I was trying to answer several diverse points in one space. I did separate them by paragraphs, I believe. I have no hidden agendas. That is a ridiculous statement because obviously if I did have one, choosing this topic would imply it was relevant to my ideas of life and death, now wouldn’t it? Those with hidden agendas are usually driven and rarely go around inserting those agendas into irrelevant discussions.

    I am simply speaking my opinion of the topic which spread from bone marrow into the broader topic of transplants in general. It is not dependent on being familiar with the specifics of one or two diseases. It is not even necessary to understand the diseases being treated to discuss the process of harvesting the organs to be transplanted. We were discussing risk factors to a live donor and who will benefit.

    I have to wonder what seems untrue to 24 about my post   23? Surely not about having a Charedi doctor. You can check with him, Dr. Ostroy in Mea Shearim. Fortunately, I don’t have much need of his services.
    Or, you don’t want to believe me about utilization reviews? I’m sorry to disillusion you. They are quite real. This is why I told Raphael in the same post that were RamBam alive today, he might have a very different opinion on trusting doctors.
    Or is it that you can’t handle that, in the face of horrible accusations and paranoid ravings, a to you, non ”erliche” Jew, could actually answer calmly and graciously, giving a good account of herself?
    Or is it simply that you, in your heart of hearts have had the same thoughts but since a “rabbi” said differently you’re going to do what he said despite your own questions and doubts.

    #25, you tried to change the topic by accusing me of doing the same. Well, sir, when I am accused of being a murderer, having hidden agendas and being ignorant, all in public, bringing the issue of lashon ha’ra into the discussion is not only pertinent it is imperative. There are Jews even further down the ladder than I am who read this and they must know how to react to such slander.

    Esther
    Esther
    14 years ago

    I have to say that I am incredibly impressed with how you defended yourself. While I do not agree with you on the topic of bone marrow and organ donation, I applaud how you defended yourself and used facts to back up your statement. Often times when people disagree they try to “shame” the other person into changing their opinion- not because they are mean but because they know no other way.
    To all those who rsponded remember that this is an open forum and you don’t have to agree but you have to respect each other. That is also a torah principle and desecration of that is extremely serious. Treat others as you wish to be treated. I wish you all well.