Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 23:14:36 GMT
Subject: Re: Charles Drew story debunked on NPR

da...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Richard N Kitchen)

> The legend is that Dr. Drew, the developer of blood plasma, was
> allowed to bleed to death in an all-white hospital in the South in
> 1950 because he was black, and no one would treat him there.

The NPR show also mentioned that Dr. Drew had earlier faced
discrimination related to blood donation, in that African Americans
were rejected as blood donors during World War II.  The irony of this
story led to its wide circulation before Dr. Drew's death.  The
historian on NPR conjectured that the spread of the death legend was
enhanced by the earlier spread of the donation story.

It should be noted that this legend is more demonstrably harmful than
most.  The African American community has a below-average level of
blood donation, and this legend is often cited as the reason.  I hope
McGill's student newspaper at least printed a retraction of the recent
story.

An interesting side issue is that while ordinary blood and plasma
transfusion is carried out without regard to race, bone marrow
transplantation has much more stringent histocompatibility
requirements: the donor and recipient are seldom compatible unless
they have genetically similar ancestry.  In particular, refusal by
African Americans to register for bone marrow donation is directly
responsible for reducing the availability of bone marrow transplants
to other African Americans.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil