Word: rh
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...Rh-typing serum, commonly used in the laboratory for determining blood types, is a scarce commodity that has been priced at $14 for 10 cc. Now a rich reservoir of the precious serum, potentially worth more than $1,000,000, has been found-all of it running in the veins of a single man in Fort Worth...
Along the way, Dr. Halden and a group of Carter researchers made the rare and happy discovery that Parker's serum (the watery part of the blood) is right for Rh typing. Such serum can be got only from Rh-negative patients who at some time in the past have had an infusion of Rh-positive blood. It contains an antibody called "anti-D," formed by natural body defenses doing battle with the invading Rh-positive factor. (Parker got his anti-D as a result of a 1947 spinal fusion when he was accidentally transfused with Rh-positive blood...
Building Up Production. At Carter, while drawing blood from Parker to treat the hemochromatosis, physicians made use of the serum byproduct in their laboratory. This gave rise to a proposal to give him more Rh-positive blood and stimulate anti-D production. Such a course was dangerous. Second transfusions of Rh-positive blood into negative patients frequently lead to severe incompatibility reactions, and sometimes death. But only a minute amount of Rh-positive blood need be transfused-a factor that favored the attempt. They put it up to the patient. "Go ahead," said Parker, "if this is going to help...
Parker has received only $300, plus free medical care. Rather than cash in on his rich Texas blood, he and the Carter Blood Center propose to get the price of Rh typing serum down...
...year-old woman in Pontiac General Hospital was anemic and needed blood transfusions to build her up for an operation. From the refrigerator, doctors took a pint of matching (Group A, Rh-positive) blood that had been stored for 19 days and transfused it into one of her veins. By the next day her blood counts were somewhat better, but to be on the safe side, the doctors gave her the concentrated cells from another pint of blood from the same donor...