Man with rare antibodies has saved 2 million babies’ lives through blood donations

The condition, Rhesus disease, occurs when a pregnant woman’s blood essentially begins attacking her unborn child’s blood cells. It occurs when a pregnant woman has rhesus-negative (RhD negative) blood and her baby has rhesus-positive (RhD positive) blood inherited from his or her father. If a RhD-negative mother becomes exposed to the RhD positive blood— typically during a previous pregnancy with a RhD positive child— she may produce antibodies that eradicate the RhD-positive baby’s foreign blood cells. When his father told him other, unknown people’s blood donations saved his life, Harrison vowed to do the same once he was allowed to, at age 18 in Australia. Every week for the past 60 years, doctors have used his antibodies to create the vaccine Anti-D, which is used to treat pregnant women with a blood disease that can lead to birth complications. He has donated his plasma more than 1,000 times. http://www.foxnews.com/health/2015/06/10/man-with-rare-antibodies-has-saved-2-million-babies-lives-through-blood/