Kicker: The power of one

NICK EICHER, HOST: You’ve heard about “the power of one?”

Well, back in the 1960s, an alarming number of Australian babies miscarried or suffered brain damage at birth. They suffered from a genetic condition called HDN, hemolytic disease of the newborn.

Researchers believed injections of blood plasma containing a rare antibody could prevent HDN.

They scoured blood banks and discovered a single donor who carried that antibody: a man named James Harrison.

So then for more than six decades, Harrison would donate blood nearly 12-hundred times for the HDN program.

Doctors say he’s helped save 2.4 million babies.

In Australia, he’s known as the “man with the golden arm.” This month, the 81-year-old Harrison officially “retired” as a blood donor.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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