[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 111 (Thursday, August 2, 2001)]
[House]
[Page H5183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   DONATING BONE MARROW FOR EMILY KIM

  (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to call a time-out on some 
of our other debate for today and bring to the attention of my 
colleagues a young girl, 6 years old, named Emily Kim. Emily is very 
bright, very beautiful, and unfortunately, she is dying of leukemia. 
This spring doctors gave her and her parents only 6 months for her to 
live.
  There is still hope, though. A bone marrow transfusion could save her 
life, literally, and doctors are hoping to find a bone marrow donor, a 
genetic match that is almost like finding a needle in a haystack, 1 in 
100,000. It is even tougher because Kim is an Asian American, and not 
many Asian Americans have signed up with the National Bone Marrow Donor 
Registry. So I am calling on my colleagues to contact their 
constituents in the Asian American community and ask them to take a 
simple test to see if they might be that one-in-a-one hundred thousand 
donor match for young Emily. You must be 18 to 60 years old and in good 
health.
  I know how important this is, because my brother died of liver cancer 
last year. We could not find a liver match that would have saved my 
brother's life, but we might save Emily's life. Take a few minutes, go 
to www.marrow.org, or contact your doctor or local office of the 
American Cancer Society. Working together, my colleagues, we may yet 
find that one-in-a-thousand donor match for young Emily Kim.

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