Bone marrow registration needed

The attached story reinforces the need for healthy people to register with a bone marrow clinic. In Canada, only 3-4% of the population donates blood regularly. The number of people who register their bone marrow is only a fraction of the population. This makes finding an unrelated bone marrow donor (or stem cell donor) a very chancy proposition.

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FOUR years ago, Mobo winner DJ Swing was touring the world with top US R'n'B artists. But in January 2003 a back pain was diagnosed as multiple myeloma.

A long wait for a bone marrow transplant ended in November, but he's appealing for potential donors to keep registering. Paul Rhys reports on a drive to save lives - given more urgency by the death of singer Lynden David Hall last week

DJ Swing is not out of the woods yet.

The Mobo award-winning artist, who pipped Fatboy Slim to the Best Club DJ title in 1998, has been given hope in his long battle against rare blood cancer multiple myeloma.

He was finally matched with a bone marrow donor last year, and is recovering at home after a successful operation.

But with the donor's bone marrow only a 90 per cent match with his own, there's still a chance he could die. Whatever happens, the 39-year-old Battersea DJ is determined that the search for suitable donors for thousands of people battling cancers and blood diseases is stepped up.

As an African Caribbean, Swing - real name Brian Daly - had only a one in 100,000 chance of finding a suitable donor.

For white people, the chance is one in five.

Worse news is that the number of black donors is woefully few. Publicity surrounding his condition - he was the subject of a Channel4 documentary, Saving DJ Swing - did ensure more people from the black community signed up to join a register of potential donors.

But campaigners are concerned that messages allaying fears about being a donor have failed to get through. And with top soul singer Lynden David Hall succumbing to the cancer Hodgkin's lymphoma on Tuesday last week, they fear people may believe the battle has been fought and lost.

Now Swing's friends - event managers Courtney Myton and Simone Ishmael, of Unlimited Entertainment - have stepped in to get the message across that more people will die if the fight does not go on. They're putting on a gig to raise cash desperately needed for donor registration clinics - and to make sure the black community knows it needs to act to save its own.

Showcase UK, at the Clapham Grand on March 19, will feature signed and unsigned UK R'n'B, soul and hip-hop artists.

There will also be 80s and new age break-dancers in homage of Swing's original DJ crew, the Boogie Bunch, and a tribute to Earlsfield's Lynden David Hall.

Mr Myton, 26, told the South London Press: "Time is of the essence. "People can help - you could be a perfect match for someone needing a transplant and in the time it takes to hesitate they could die. "By reaching out and registering, you're saving lives. "This is people's mothers and brothers, it could be your neighbour. "What happened to Lynden could happen to anybody. "Our heart goes out to his family."

Potential donors in the black community have been hard to reach.

Reasons include fears that donation is against religious teachings, that infections could be spread from needles, and that donating could be painful.

Miss Ishmael, 25, said: "People think if they come forward as a donor there'll be a big operation, that they'll have their spine opened up and marrow scraped out. "It's just a matter of a few pints of blood, a lie down and a cup of sweet tea."