Officials at St. Luke’s Mountain States Tumor Institute in Boise say the facility is shutting down it’s bone-marrow donor registry because it can’t meet new standards that it add 1,000 minorities a year.
The new standards were recently set by the National Marrow Donor Program based in Minneapolis. Mark Allen, the institute’s Marrow Donor Center coordinator, says the demographics of the region make it impossible to recruit 1,000 minority bone marrow donors. St. Luke’s averages 1,000 donors each year, and just ten percent are minorities.
Officials at St. Luke’s say they will shut down the program in September. (AP)