I swabbed #4amit, but with the big one this time.

As you know my buddy Amit Gupta was diagnosed with Leukemia. People all around the world have tried to help him find a bone marrow match. It’s been amazing to watch and hopefully all their effort will help keep him alive. 

It was made public on Wired yesterday that Amit will have to undergo a bone marrow procedure before the end of the year so all the swabbing #4amit has come to an end.

Unfortunately via Good

According to Carol Gillespie, executive director of the Asian American Donor Program, getting South Asians to sign up for the registry is the easy part. The real challenge is getting them to commit to the donation after being matched. Gillespie told me that more than 50 percent of South Asians in the registry refuse to go through with the donation process if selected

The GOOD NEWS is that yesterday the courts decided that it is legal to compensate bone marrow donors which means that if a person becomes a match for Amit Gupta they will receive $30,000* for a simple procedure that is similar to giving blood. 

I havent really publicly discussed this since I commited to match Seth Godin’s $10k reward in fear of the legal system preventing the simple bone marrow transfer from occurring. Hopefully the registry will find Amit a match and they will be enticed to go ahead with the procedure and allow for Amit to live a long and healthy life.

BTW if you havent joined a bone marrow registry. its never to late to join; you can save someone else’s awesome friend.

*Jake Lodwick also committed $10k bringing the total to $30k

#Bangalore #4Amit @superamit An article in #BangaloreMirror today. The drives are on all weekend in the city. Get to your nearest one! (Taken with instagram)

Just swabbed #4Amit @superamit here at Red Balloon :) (Taken with Instagram at Touro University)

Bangalore #4Amit bit.ly/w4KSf7 (Taken with instagram)

On the way to you Amit.

We can do this people

GPOYW- swabbing for Amit.

Everyone should be doing this for GPOYW (esp if your brown)

Photojojo’s Amit Gupta was recently diagnosed with Leukemia. He’ll be one step closer to curing it if he can find a genetic match of South Asian descent.

Here’s the best thing you can do to help right now: 

Sign up to get a free test by mail. You rub your cheeks with a cotton swab and mail it back. It’s easy.

 Amit’s full message here.

Let’s go fellow brownies!

-Ds