An Australian man who has been donating his extremely
rare kind of blood for 56 years has saved the lives of more than two million
babies.
James Harrison has an antibody in his plasma that
stops babies dying from Rhesus disease, a form of severe anaemia. He has
enabled countless mothers to give birth to healthy babies, including his own
daughter, Tracey, who had a healthy son thanks to her father's blood.
Mr. Harrison has been giving blood every few weeks
since he was 18 years old and has now racked up a total of 984 donations. When
he started donating, his blood was deemed so special that his life was insured
for one million Australian dollars.
He was also nicknamed the “man with the golden arm” or
the “man in two million”. He said: “I've never thought about stopping.
Never.” He made a pledge to be a donor aged 14 after undergoing major chest
surgery in which he needed 13 litres of blood. “I was in hospital for three
months,” he said. “The blood I received saved my life so I made a pledge to
give blood when I was 18.”
Just after he started donating he was found to have
the rare and life-saving antibody in his blood. At the time, thousands of
babies in Australia were dying each year of Rhesus disease. Other newborns
suffered permanent brain damage because of the condition. The disease
creates an incompatibility between the mother's blood and her unborn baby's
blood. It stems from one having Rh-positive blood and the other
Rh-negative.
His blood has since led to the development of a
vaccine called Anti-D. After his blood type was discovered, Mr. Harrison
volunteered to undergo a series of tests to help develop the Anti-D vaccine.
“They insured me for a million dollars so I knew my wife Barbara would be taken
care of,” he said. “I wasn't scared. I was glad to help. I had to sign every
form going and basically sign my life away.”
Mr. Harrison is Rh-negative and was given injections
of Rh-positive blood. It was found his plasma could treat the condition and
since then it has been given to hundreds of thousands of women. It has also
been given to babies after they are born to stop them developing the disease.
It is estimated he has helped save 2.2 million babies
so far. Mr. Harrison is still donating every few weeks now.
1.How old is James Harrison？
A．56 B．70 C．74 D．78
2.What does the underlined phrase “two million”
refer to?
A．dollars B．babies C．mothers D．a(chǎn)ll of the
above
3.Why did James decide to donate his blood? Because
_____.
A．someone else’s blood saved his life
B．he has a
golden arm worth a million dollars
C．a(chǎn) vaccine
called Anti-D is to be developed
D．his daughter
asked him to help her son
4.The sentence “The disease creates an
incompatibility between the mother's blood and her unborn baby's blood”
(underlined in Paragraph 5) suggests that _____.
A．a(chǎn)ll the
patients have a rare antibody in their blood
B．babies suffer
permanent brain damage before born
C．Rhesus
disease contributes to permanent brain damage
D．. the mother
and the baby have different types of blood
5.What can we infer from the sixth paragraph?
A．His wife
Barbara needed to be taken care of badly then.
B．Some of the
tests to develop the vaccine are dangerous.
C．Mr. Harrison
was glad to help develop a new vaccine.
D．His blood
type was accidentally discovered after tests.
