VOA News | Wednesday, March 5, 2025 
James Harrison, whose blood plasma donations are credited with saving 2.4 million babies, dies at 88 

MELBOURNE, Australia — James Harrison, whose blood plasma donations are credited with An Australian man credited with saving 2.4 million babies through his record-breaking blood plasma donations over six decades, has died at 88, his family said Tuesday. James Harrison, a retired state railway department clerk, died in a nursing home on the central coast of New South Wales state on Feb. 17, according to his grandson, Jarrod Mellowship. Harrison had been surprised to be recognized by Guinness World Records in 2005 as the person who had donated the most blood plasma in the world, Mellowship said. Despite an aversion to needles, he made 1,173 donations after he turned 18 in 1954 until he was forced to retire in 2018 at age 81. “He did it for the right reasons. As humble as he was, he did like the attention. But he would never do it for the attention,” Mellowship said. The record was beaten in 2022 by American Brett Cooper from Walker, Michigan. – Australian Red Cross Blood Service pays tribute to donor – The Australian Red Cross Blood Service said Harrison was renowned as the “Man with the Golden Arm.” He was credited with saving the lives of 2.4 million babies through his plasma donations, the national agency responsible for collecting and distributing blood products, also known as Lifeblood, said in a statement. Harrison’s plasma contained a rare antibody known as anti-D. The antibody is used to make injections that protect unborn babies from hemolytic disease of the newborn, in which a pregnant woman’s immune system attacks her fetus’ red blood cells. The disease is most common when…Read more