![]() ![]() It was known, for instance, that Rh disease would not occur if Rh-negative mothers did not develop the antibodies. Alvin Zipursky, MD, a Toronto-based pediatrician, who was working in Winnipeg at that time, was studying the extent of the transfer of fetal red blood cells into the maternal circulation throughout pregnancy and at parturition.īy the early ’60s, when the researchers started their work, much of the scientific foundation for such a treatment already existed. Two physicians based in Liverpool, England, Cyril Clarke, MD, and Ronald Finn, MD, were independently pursuing the same goal. Pollack, chief research scientist at the Ortho Pharmaceuticals lab. Gorman set out to cure Rh disease with Dr. Roughly 15 percent of American women have Rh-negative blood.ĭr. Once a woman is sensitized, her antibodies can cross the placenta to destroy the red blood cells of her fetus, which can lead to miscarriage, brain damage, or the newborn’s death. But each subsequent Rh-positive fetus increases the odds the mother will become “sensitized” to the fetus. It takes some time to produce such antibodies, so the first Rh-positive child is typically spared. ![]() In these cases, when fetal red blood cells cross into the mother’s circulation-usually at delivery-the mother’s body begins producing antibodies that can attack and kill a fetus’s red blood cells. Rh disease can develop when a woman with Rh-negative blood is pregnant with an Rh-positive fetus. Plus, there’s peace of mind for Rh-negative mothers. There have been no fatalities in 50 years, and it saves $1 billion every year by preventing high-risk Rh pregnancies. “It’s the most cost-effective drug ever produced. Gorman, former director of the blood bank at what is now NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, to the audience gathered for a panel discussion to celebrate the drug. “I still marvel at how a low-tech solution could have such impact,” said Dr. In February, Columbia researchers and physicians joined guests from around the world to celebrate RhoGAM’s 50th anniversary. The disease is almost completely prevented by RhoGAM, a drug developed in the 1960s by Columbia researchers John Gorman, MD, and Vincent Freda, MD, and a pharmaceutical company researcher, William Pollack, PhD. Rh disease has essentially been eradicated in high-income countries but until the late 1960s was one of the most severe and devastating conditions for newborns, killing approximately 10,000 infants a year and causing brain damage in many more in the United States alone. ![]()
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