The Match
Savior Siblings and One Family's Battle to Heal Their Daughter
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
My Sister’s Keeper in nonfiction: a family’s real-life struggle to cure their daughter by creating her genetic match
Katie Trebing was diagnosed at three months old with Diamond Blackfan anemia, a rare form of anemia that prevents bone marrow from producing red blood cells. Even with a lifetime of monthly blood transfusions, she faced a poor prognosis. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Beth Whitehouse follows the Trebings as they make the decision to create a genetically matched sibling using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in vitro fertilization, and proceed with a risky bone-marrow transplant that could kill their daughter rather than save her. The Match is a timely and provocative look at urgent issues that can only become more complex and pressing as genetic and reproductive technologies advance.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Expanding on her five-part Newsday series , Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Whitehouse tracks Stacy and Steve Trebing and their decision to create a baby boy selected as an embryo as a genetic match for a sister suffering from Diamond-Blackfan anemia, a rare and fatal disease. When he was a year old, needles were inserted into the anesthetized baby's hips and his marrow siphoned to be transfused into Katie. The process, Whitehouse tells us, would either cure her or kill her. As Whitehouse follows the Trebings from Katie's diagnosis through Christopher's conception via in vitro fertilization to Katie's painful but successful bone-marrow transfusion, she also touches on some of the ethical issues surrounding savior siblings : who protects the child if he later is asked to donate other tissue or even a kidney to help the ailing sibling, and would the parents resent the donor sibling if the ailing sibling died after the bone marrow transfusion? Whitehouse's nimble explanations of complex medical issues in laymen's terms and her penetration of the Trebings' decision-making process will benefit other parents in similar circumstances.
