For some reason I've always had the impression that O was rare. I cross checked with wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type#ABO_and_Rh_distribut... and it seems a bit less than A (O+ and O- compared to A+, A-, AB+ and AB-), but no means rare. Did anybody else have this prejudice?
The 'native' part also seems a little dubious. What is that supposed to mean in terms of their samples?
Yup, I had exactly the same reaction (I was even just about to post the wikipedia url, before I read your post).
I may have been getting a few ideas mixed up though - certainly someone with O- is quite rare, but O+ is very common. And then there is the fact that if you are O-, you are guaranteed to have the lowest likelihood of finding a matching donor.
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For some reason I've always had the impression that O was rare. I cross checked with wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type#ABO_and_Rh_distribut... and it seems a bit less than A (O+ and O- compared to A+, A-, AB+ and AB-), but no means rare. Did anybody else have this prejudice?
The 'native' part also seems a little dubious. What is that supposed to mean in terms of their samples?
Yup, I had exactly the same reaction (I was even just about to post the wikipedia url, before I read your post).
I may have been getting a few ideas mixed up though - certainly someone with O- is quite rare, but O+ is very common. And then there is the fact that if you are O-, you are guaranteed to have the lowest likelihood of finding a matching donor.
I always thought AB was the most common, but it appears to be less than 10% almost everywhere.