DENVER—Significant progress has been made in the past two decades finding bone marrow donors for leukemia and other cancer sufferers, but on any given day 6,000 people need donations—even though 11 million people are on a global donor registry.
The Denver-based Love Hope Strength Foundation, founded by entertainment insurance executive James Chippendale and British musician Mike Peters, formerly of The Alarm, has a way to boost the numbers: Solicit donors at rock concerts. Both Chippendale and Peters are cancer survivors.
Last weekend, the foundation advertised for donors at Denver-area concerts featuring Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Steve Winwood and the Dave Matthews Band. It set a foundation record of 435 newly registered donors for a music event. In the past, getting 50 was a good result for a run-of-the-mill drive.
The foundation, headquartered in Denver with offices in Britain and Australia, plans to work more rock shows.
The National Marrow Donor Program estimates that on any given day, 6,000 people in the United States are looking for a marrow donor. Only one person in 200 who registers for the program will be asked to donate.
Fears of painful injections deter some people from registering. All a donor has to do to register is have a cotton swab run through the mouth,
About 71 percent of marrow donations involve a process where blood-forming cells are removed from the donor’s blood stream. The other 29 percent involve the insertion of a needle into the hip bone to remove blood-forming cells. The pain is minor.
Chippendale said he was near death in 2000 when he got a match in Germany.
“When I went in they said I was two weeks from being dead,” the Dallas resident said. “There had been several disappointments with near matches. We didn’t know what we were going to do.”
A German donor who had registered because a friend had cancer turned up.
“Klaus Kaiser was from a small village in Germany,” Chippendale said. “After this I said, ‘Why me? Why am I so lucky? That is why we started the foundation.”
He wants to help others, like Michelle Maykin, 26, of San Francisco, who works in advisory services for the professional services firm KPMG. She also does volunteer work.
Chemotherapy has kept Maykin alive, but she suffered a relapse in May. Her friends, family and strangers have registered 15,000 potential donors. It is more difficult for minorities because the donor pool is smaller to begin with.
Caucasians have an 88 percent change of finding a match, Asians 78 percent, and African-Americans 60 percent. Maykin is of Chinese-Vietnamese ancestry.
“I’m feeling a bit nauseous. But it could be worse. I’m OK,” Maykin said in telephone interview hours after chemotherapy.
“I haven’t had any false hopes” about getting a match, she said, adding, “You are pretty much kept in the dark.” She admitted, though, that “every time the phone rings you get a little anxious, or anytime I get an e-mail.”
Maykin said her nurses have told her the transplant process itself is hell on earth. “I’m kind of preparing myself for that,” she said.
Chippendale knows finding a match is only the beginning. He spent 90 days in isolation in a hospital because the treatment suppresses the immune system.
The foundation’s next concert event is at Machu Picchu, Peru, from Oct. 8-17, and will feature Fastball, The Fixx and others. Love Hope Strength also will team with the German donor registration board, DKMS, for a 17-campus college tour in the U.S. his fall.
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On the Net:
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National Marrow Donor Program:
Donor search for Michelle Maykin:
