ASIAN AMERICAN DONOR PROGRAM
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Mission Statement
Asian American Donor Program (AADP) educates and registers potential marrow donors for the NMDP Registry. Our focus is the ethnic minority community. AADP works with patients, their families, and friends, using social media, mainstream media, and community-based leaders to help tell their stories and encourage more people to register as donors. Our hope is that every patient in need of a marrow donor will find a perfect match and that the donor will be available to help when he or she is asked to help save a life.
About This Cause
Since its inception back in 1989, the Asian American Donor Program (AADP) has worked to increase the number of marrow donors available to individuals of Asian descent. Inspired by the National Marrow Donor Program’s (NMDP) noticeable lack of registered Asian American donors (namely, only 123 at the time AADP was first established!), the founders of AADP stepped forward in the hopes of helping to meet this medical need. AADP extended its outreach efforts to the multi-ethnic communities in December 2008 and is working with community leaders. Through a combination of educational materials, marrow/stem cell drives, and fund-raising events, AADP has successfully recruited thousands of Asian American donors since that time. Today, nearly 950,000 Asians are registered nationwide. To date, AADP has helped save the lives of 720 patients by educating and registering the individuals who went on to donate their marrow or stem cells. And, as those numbers keep growing every year, the number of Asians who die due to the lack of a compatible stem cell donor is diminishing. We are doing what we set out to do. Still, the problem is ongoing. Every year, more than 36,000 people are diagnosed with life-threatening blood diseases, such as leukemia, multiple myeloma, inherited immune system disorders, severe aplastic anemia, Hodgkin’s disease, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, myelodysplastic syndromes, histiocytic disorders, and inherited erythrocyte abnormalities. For some who are stricken with these diseases, approximately 12,000 every year, a transplant of healthy blood stem cells may be their only hope for a cure. Although approximately 30% of patients find a tissue-matched donor within their own families, the other 70% need to search national and international marrow registries to find an unrelated compatible donor. Since certain stem cell characteristics are unique to people of specific ancestry, minority patients are often more likely to find a match within their own minority group than they are to find a match outside of their own race or ethnicity. Unfortunately, minority patients have consistently been underrepresented in the lists provided by the NMDP Registry. By continually seeking out, supporting, and employing the latest, most advanced procedures for marrow registration, AADP has been able to serve as a leader in assisting individuals diagnosed with a variety of life-threatening illnesses curable only with stem cell transplants.