Bone marrow registration spikes after TV anchor announcement - Reuters
NEW YORK |
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two weeks after "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts announced she was being treated for a rare blood and bone marrow disease, the number of people offering to donate bone marrow has jumped, according to officials.
More than 12,000 people joined the donation registry Be The Match in the two weeks after the ABC morning show co-host announced she has MDS, a disease requiring a bone marrow transplant, on June 11, registry officials said on Tuesday. Previously, the monthly average was 9,000, they said.
"A significant number of those requests referenced Robin Roberts," said Kirsten Lesak-Greenberg, a Be The Match spokeswoman.
Jeffrey Chell, chief executive of Be The Match, said between 400,000 and 500,000 new donors are added to the registry each year.
Some 6,000 transplants are performed yearly, while more than 12,000 people need them each year, he said.
Chell praised the disclosure by Roberts, a popular television personality, saying: "It's remarkable that she would take her personal crisis and turn it into a signal of hope."
ABC has been organizing company registry drives, Be The Match said, and a drive this week resulted in signing up 230 potential donors, more than four times the typical 50.
Matches are difficult to find because tissue types, including a key marker in the immune system that recognizes which cells belong in the body, vary from person to person.
Some are common, and others extremely rare, and many patients may never find a match. Only about one in every 540 donors will actually donate bone marrow due to the difficulty of finding of matches, according to Be The Match.
Chell said thanks to the added number of donors, 50 to 70 lives may be saved in the next five years.
Some 70 diseases, many of them life-threatening, require transplanting bone marrow, Chell said. They include leukemia, which is cancer of the blood or bone marrow, lymphoma, which is cancer of part of the immune system, and sickle-cell anemia.
Roberts' disease involves damaged bone marrow, which carries a high risk of developing into leukemia.
Interested donors can sign up on www.marrow.org. A cotton swab test is sent to the address of a potential donor, who swabs the inside of his or her mouth and sends the test back to the registry.
(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Gunna Dickson)
McIlroy admits he needs to overhaul his attitude - ESPN.co.uk
Rory McIlroy has acknowledged that he needs to develop a better attitude in the face of adversity if he is to make his way out of his current troubles.
McIlroy, the 2011 US Open champion, has struggled for form in recent weeks - missing four of his last five cuts as he proved unable to make a strong defence of his major title at Olympic Club.
This week the 23-year-old is playing in the Irish Open at Royal Portrush - where he shot the course record of 61 as a 16-year-old - and admits that he is working on his mental approach to improve his fortunes.
"Definitely in the past if things haven't gone my way the fight goes out of me pretty quickly," McIlroy said. "That's something I'm working on and something that I'm trying to get better at."
Portrush is a welcome warm-up for next month's Open Championship, although 12 months ago McIlroy raised eyebrows by suggesting that he did not feel suited to links golf and the trying conditions that often accompany it. Again, that is something he is trying to be more comfortable with - along with the attention he will receive as the biggest home hope of victory.
"I want to try to become a better wind and bad weather player and the only way to do that is by playing in it," he noted. "I got back home at the weekend and the weather was not particularly good, but I dragged myself out and hit balls and was like 'this could actually be very beneficial for me'."
On playing in his homeland, he added: "To be honest, the last couple of years I didn't quite enjoy the tag of home favourite. I just didn't feel very comfortable with it.
"This year I really want to embrace that. You look at so many people and when they've got a home advantage it is an advantage. It should be for not just me, but for the guys from here."
As for his chances this week, McIlroy does not expect his scoring to be anywhere near as low as it was seven years ago, although he still believes he can contend for victory.
"I'd take four 69s and see what happens I think," McIlroy said. "I've put 10 days of really good work in. My game feels good - it actually felt pretty good at the US Open, it's just that if you are slightly off at a US Open it's so hard to get yourself into contention.
"In a way it couldn't be a better time to come back here and play Portrush. It brings back so many good memories and you can feed off that."
© ESPN EMEA Ltd
T-Mobile's Humm to join Vodafone - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Philipp Humm, who quit the top job at T-Mobile USA on Wednesday, said on Thursday he would become chief executive of northern and central Europe for Vodafone (VOD.L) from October 1.
Humm joins Vodafone from his role as president and chief executive of Deutsche Telekom's (DTEGn.DE) T-Mobile USA to oversee the British firm's presence in such markets as Germany, Britain, Turkey and the Czech Republic.
Vodafone's operations in northern Europe have held up well in recent years despite the pressures on consumer spending, which has helped to offset the slump in spending in southern Europe.
Vodafone said on Thursday it would split its European region into two between northern and central Europe, and southern Europe, with the chief executive of Vodafone Italy Paolo Bertoluzzo taking the top job over the latter.
He will oversee such markets as Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.
"Our new regional structure will underpin our strategy focused on meeting our customers' long-term needs, and Paolo and Philipp will be strong additions to the Vodafone group executive committee," Vittorio Colao said in a statement.
T-Mobile USA said on Wednesday that Humm was leaving for personal reasons to spend more time with his family, but in a letter to employees Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Rene Obermann said Humm was leaving to join a competitor.
(Reporting by Kate Holton)
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