Blacks Recruited as Bone Marrow Donors

African-American bone marrow donors are being sought by the Judie Davis Marrow Donor Recruitment Program in an effort to find suitable matches for people with leukemia, aplastic anemia and other related disease.

These patients have a 1-in-20,000 chance of finding a suitable match among donors who are not of African heritage.

The program is named for an Oakland woman who died last Feburary when she was unable to find a match in the National Registry of 50,000 donors, of which only 300 were black.

The program plans to blood-type 11,000 African-Americans in the Los Angeles area. Its Southern California spokeswoman, Yvette Chappell, has urged blacks 18 to 55 to become bone marow donors, noting that thousands of African-Americans each year are afflicted with leukemia.

For information about the Judie Davis Marrow Donor Recruitment Program, call 964-2665.