Guglielmo marrow search
THIS STORY OF A SEARCH FOR A MATCHING BONE MARROW DONOR IN NEW HAMPSHIRE HAS A WEST MICHIGAN CONNECTION: ‘Help Giovanni’ site shut down: Complaint derails bone marrow effort.
Michael Guglielmo’s infant son Giovanni suffers from a very serious immune disorder and Mr. Guglielmo is doing everything he can to raise money and to get more people signed up as potential bone marrow donors. He built a web site called helpgiovanniguglielmo.org with photos, information, and requests for financial donations to help the family care for Giovanni and visit him in the Boston Children’s Hospital. He printed up fliers for local businesses to display, but when some didn’t post them, he began calling for boycotts and listed those businesses on a Non Giovanni Supporters page on the web site.
It’s at that point that Robert Dewey of Wyoming, Michigan became involved. He was alerted to the effort, but declined to donate:
Dewey, a 39-year-old Web designer who says he has been a foster parent for a decade, said he first heard about Giovanni’s Web site from a friend and e-mailed the infant’s father, telling him he felt bad for Giovanni but would not be donating either his bone marrow or his money to the infant.
Dewey said he questioned how the child’s family was using monetary donations and objected to a part of the Web site in which the father listed businesses that refused to post fliers in their windows about his son’s search for a bone marrow donor.
“I’m not insensitive to this family’s plight, but they’ve played fast and loose with this Web site,