Out of Gas - A Little Help Please by Brit

FIREFLY EPISODE DISCUSSIONS

Out of Gas - A Little Help Please

POSTED BY: BRIT
UPDATED: Monday, December 2, 2002 03:30
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Sunday, December 1, 2002 4:47 PM

As a poor deprived Brit who doesn't have broadband and cannot download episodes I need a little help.

In Out of Gas, Wash is giving Mal a blood transfusion, I am assuming a direct donor to host link.

Is Wash therefore a Universal donor, that is one who has O Negative blood, or is he fortunately the same group as Mal, or is Mal a universal recipient? AB Positive.

I know silly question but I need to know for an rp.

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Sunday, December 1, 2002 5:01 PM

DOCEBO

They haven't said in the show yet, but a safe bet would be to say that Wash is O neg. Good luck with the rping

-Docebo

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Sunday, December 1, 2002 6:04 PM

DELVO

Actually, those are some of the possibilities, but not all. The actual rule is that the donor (Wash) can't have any of the three factors if the receiver (Mal) doesn't have it, even though the receiver can have any that the donor doesn't. In other words, don't put anything into someone who doesn't already have it. Since O is defined as the blood type(s) lacking factors A and B, and "negative" means a blood type lacks factor R, type O(-) doesn't have anything that could be bad for anyone, which is what makes them universal donors. Similarly, an AB(+) has all of the factors, so nobody else's blood contains anything natural (meaning we're not talking about diseases or poisons) that could screw it up, which is what makes them universal receivers. But blood donation doesn't have to be a perfect match or involve a "universal" anything. Partial matches and semi-universalities that work just fine abound. So it could be that neither of them's a universal anything and they're of different types, but it's still OK.

In other words...

If Mal has A, then Wash could have A or not, but if Mal doesn't have it, then Wash can't.

If Mal has B, then Wash could have B or not, but if Mal doesn't have it, then Wash can't.

If Mal is positive for the R factor, then Wash could be either status on the R factor, but if Mal is negative for it, then Wash has to be also.

So, for example, an A positive can receive from A or O, either positive or negative for the R factor, but not from B or AB... and can donate to A and AB as long as they're positive, but not to type B or O or anybody negative. Another random example: a B negative can receive from B or O as long as they're negative, but not from A or AB or anybody positive... and can donate to B or AB, whether negative or positive, but not to A or O.

It's often screwed up in movies and TV shows, where it seems to be thought better drama for a blood type to be extremely rare and need an extact match. But even O(-) people can get donations at pretty much any hospital, and there are also fake bloods that can suffice in certain cases. It does get more plausible when you're not at a properly stocked hospital, but even then sometimes they manage to screw it up. For example, in the John Wayne movie "Hatari", one guy gets gored in the leg by a rhinoceros and is taken to the nearest hospital, which takes hours because they're in the middle of nowhere. OK, maybe it's not the most well-supplied hospital, that's acceptable, but then the doctor just HAD to specify that the problem was that even though they had blood, AB(-) was very difficult to find. Gewd gawd, AB(-) patients can receive any blood that's negative for the R factor, regardless of the A/B/O thing, and there were half a dozen guys in that room alone, so there were almost certainly one or two perfectly good donors standing right there!... nevermind the rest of the hospital staff and visitors, and the fact that the blood supply which they apparently did have on hand must surely have some negative of some kind in it somewhere!

BTW, the reason the naming and notation is different for factor R from the way it is for factors A & B is because the A/B/O issue was figured out at one point but still not always successful, and the later discovery of the R factor explained why it sometimes didn't work and allowed the perfection of the system. And the people who discovered that just hadn't been using the same terms to describe it. Otherwise, positive would probably just be "C".

* * *

Of course, maybe none of that matters if "modern" technology allows Simon to hook up a simple device in the line that filters out the unwanted factors, or can add in the appropriate counterfactors, or do some other such treatment to neutralize the whole blood-type issue...

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Sunday, December 1, 2002 7:29 PM

QUEENTIYE

{{{{{{{{{{Delvo!!!}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

{Sorry... couldn't help it! Thanks for the details!

)

QT

QueenTiye, Companion Academy, class of 2006

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Monday, December 2, 2002 3:30 AM

BRIT

Thanks for the help, being O Rh Neg myself I was a little curious. I am pretty certain though if you are O Rh Neg the only other blood you can be transfused with is O Rh Neg. One thing about being this type is that you are always pretty popular at blood donation centres.

When I had my children I had to have an injection of Anti D. This was because they were all O Rh Pos and I may have developed antibodies in my blood that could prove dangerous in any future pregnancies.

I find the whole blood group thing very interesting and there are many other ways of typing blood. The card I carry has all of these on it, not sure what all of them mean though.

Once more many thanks and I think I will probably go with the wonderfully cliched Universal Donor :)

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