In South Carolina, 4,500 people have Sickle Cell Disease, an inherited blood disorder characterized by defective hemoglobin (a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to the tissues of the body). Most of these are African Americans. While the disease disproportionately affects African Americans and Hispanics of Caribbean ancestry, the Sickle Cell trait has also been found in persons of Middle Eastern, Indian, Latin American, Native American, and Mediterranean heritage. Even persons of European heritage whose ancestry also includes that of one of the aforementioned ethnic groups can have the trait or the disease. On today's edition of Insight, Bhakti Larry Hough interviews Yvonne Donald, deputy director of the James R. Clark Memorial Sickle Cell Foundation of Columbia, which has offices in Florence and Bishopville.
Insight airs Wednesdays, at 10 a.m., 7 p.m. and midnight.
