Effective altruists have considered the potential effectiveness of blood donation and kidney donation. When I read Peter SInger’s recent article in the Boston Review, The Logic of Effective Altruism, he also mentioned effective altruists also consider donating bone marrow. I didn’t know people could donate bone marrow.
Does anyone know if there’s an analysis somewhere about how effective donating bone marrow is? If not, would anyone willing to do an analysis? I could help, but I have enough analytic skill to do it by myself.
You can sign up for it, but it’s pretty unlikely you’ll get selected. However, it is potentially life saving and at least in Germany it didn’t cost that much time, so I’d recommend it.
(I signed up this year.)
I don’t know of an analysis, but I’m signed up, and would guess it’s pretty effective and genuinely can be (counterfactually) lifesaving. It is (or at least used to be) quite painful and puts you out of action for a bit, but has lower costs than kidney donation.
Effective altruists have considered the potential effectiveness of blood donation and kidney donation. When I read Peter SInger’s recent article in the Boston Review, The Logic of Effective Altruism, he also mentioned effective altruists also consider donating bone marrow. I didn’t know people could donate bone marrow.
Does anyone know if there’s an analysis somewhere about how effective donating bone marrow is? If not, would anyone willing to do an analysis? I could help, but I have enough analytic skill to do it by myself.
You can sign up for it, but it’s pretty unlikely you’ll get selected. However, it is potentially life saving and at least in Germany it didn’t cost that much time, so I’d recommend it. (I signed up this year.)
IIRC there are two registries that it’s worth joining in the UK, and you can apply to join one of them online and the other whenever you donate blood:
http://www.anthonynolan.org/8-ways-you-could-save-life/donate-your-stem-cells/apply-join-our-register
http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/qa/index.asp#howcan
This appears to be the place to sign up in Canada:
https://www.blood.ca/en/stem-cells
(It seems that in some countries the term to search for is “stem cell donation for leukaemia” or somesuch.)
I don’t know of an analysis, but I’m signed up, and would guess it’s pretty effective and genuinely can be (counterfactually) lifesaving. It is (or at least used to be) quite painful and puts you out of action for a bit, but has lower costs than kidney donation.
My colleague did it last year—sounds much much easier than a kidney donation (in the UK)!!
Interesting, what did it involve? Am I right in remembering it put you out of action for a bit, or has this changed in the past few years?