Black Americans suffering from sickle cell disease and other life-threatening blood disorders are in the fight of their lives to find suitable donors to give them the promise of improved prognosis and more positive outcomes for long-term living. The issue at hand though is that these health conditions require finding a blood stem cell donor match to increase the chances of success for patients. Patients are likely to find matching donors among people with a similar ancestry. Due to medical racism, Black Americans have been reluctant to participate in donor programs, which is severely impacting the possibility of blood stem cell transplants for Black patients battling sickle cell anemia or blood cancers like leukemia.
Be The Match®, a leading organization in identifying and matching donors and patients, is working diligently to increase the number of African Americans on its registry by increasing awareness and alleviating fears associated with the process of blood stem cell donations, which is often a non-surgical procedure resembling a plasma donation.
Rolling out CEO Munson Steed recently spoke with Joey Booker about his Be The Match experience and what being a donor has meant to him.
When and how did you first learn about the Be The Match Registry?
I had been wanting to contribute to helping people with medical conditions by making a lifesaving donation that I could actually do as a live donor. … So, in 2016, I signed up on the registry and it took about a week to get my kit in the mail. I swabbed my cheeks, sent it back in and that was it. I was on the registry.
How long before you became a match?
I thought that it would take a couple of weeks before I would receive the phone call that I was a match, but it actually took four years before I got that call. … The process for getting involved was so simple that I was surprised that there weren’t as many Black people on the registry as I expected. For me, it has been a privilege to help raise awareness of stem cell donation.
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