BY VEENA RAO

“It does not matter if you are from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. It does not matter if you are Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Jain. What matters is that we all share the same genetic pool, and we can save each other’s lives!” 

Dr Vijay Mehta is a man with a mission. His movement to raise awareness about the National Bone Marrow Program within the South Asian community is the single most driving force of his life; leading him to personally register 13,000 people since 1999.

Thanks to his efforts, and the work of other groups like the New York based SAMAR (South Asian Marrow Association of Recruiters), the community is slowly warming up to this cause. South Asian participation in the marrow registry has increased from just 5000 during the period 1988 to 1999, to an estimated 65,000 today.

For this Temple, Texas based general surgeon, the wake up call came in the summer of 1999, when he received a call from the father of a 14-year old boy, Krupal Desai, who needed a matching bone marrow. The call stirred Dr Mehta. “I wondered- what if I had a 14-year old whose life depended on finding a matching bone marrow? I knew in my heart that there were at least 10 Asian Indians in this country with a matching bone marrow. I just didn’t know which ones!” 

Later that year, while addressing the ISA Talent show for the University of Texas, Austin, Dr Mehta announced that he would personally register 10,000 people. He reached his goal at the SASA (South Asian Students' Alliance) Convention in Orlando, Florida in January 2003, and has since then registered more than 3000 people through a total of over 200 drives.

Has any South Asian in need of a transplant benefited from the marrow registry? “Yes,” says the doctor. Although the National Marrow Registry does not make the identity of the donor and the recipient public for at least a year and thereafter, only with their permissions, Dr Mehta knows of at least three donors from Springfield, Illinois, one from the University of Texas, Austin and a young woman he met at the Jain Convention in 2001. He recounts the heartening story of a young lady from Tulane University he met at the SASA 2004 convention who had received a bone marrow from a Hispanic woman and is now cured of cancer.

On the other end are the sad stories of Mohan Vishwanath, a vice-president at Yahoo Inc. and 32-year old Varinderpal Sandhu who did find donors, but by the time a match was found, they were too weak to survive a transplant.

Alisha Sheth from California passed away in 2001, and only a week later, the National Registry found five perfect matches for her. 

“The lesson is clear. If we wait to register until someone we know needs a bone marrow, it might be too late. It takes about 3-6 months to process the sample, find the match and help the patient. So the best time to register is now,” says Dr Mehta.

Donating bone marrow is a safe process, he adds. According to the National Bone Marrow Registry, more than 20,000 people have donated their bone marrow to an unrelated recipient in this country without a single major complication! 

For many South Asians, it is the fear of surgery and severe pain that keeps them from registering as potential donors, which is why the community’s response rate is much lower than Caucasians. “When I started my campaign, Caucasians, when matched, would come forward to donate over 70% of the time while Asian Indians would do the same around 30% of the time.”

This fear is largely based on misconceptions, says Dr Mehta.. “New techniques have actually made it possible to take bone marrow from the blood through the arm veins. 
Under general anesthesia (while you feel no pain), at no cost to you, less than 5% of your marrow will be removed with the help of a needle. No bones need to be cut. You might be sore for a week or two. You make up that marrow in less than 3 weeks.”

“Even earlier, when the procedure involved taking the marrow through a needle under anesthesia from the donor’s hip bone, everybody I spoke with consistently indicated that the pain is more akin to falling on ice and is (easily) managed with medication,” he adds.

Dr Mehta believes that the onus lies on community organizations to become more proactive in holding marrow drives. “We need to awaken the sprit of our people. We need to hold bone marrow drives at every community event. We Indians are basically a generous and giving people.” All that is needed is to deliver the message properly, he says. Besides, the media needs to donate time for public service announcement on this worthy cause, he adds. “We need to provide a positive feed back to the National Registry – in order to improve participation of people in the program.”

How difficult it is to give a blood sample once in a lifetime, Dr Mehta’s question to the community is simple. A small effort for a chance at doing something as spiritually uplifting as giving somebody a new chance at life!!

Dr Vijay Mehta can be reached at 254 774 8247(Home) 254 721 7245 (Cell) or through email at VijayVIP@aol.com. For more information visit www.VijayMehta.com..