Primary Immune Deficiency Disease has been represented with a blue ribbon for many years. When the Immune Deficiency Foundation held its first Patient and Family Conference in 2003, many of the SCID families who had met online and shared each other’s losses and triumphs for many years would meet face-to-face for the first time. As a way to identify themselves to one another they decided to wear a ribbon attached to their name badges. There was some debate over the ribbon color, but that lead to a quick and definitive agreement: it must be white! More than half of the SCID families had at least one SCID angel. White was the color of choice because it would honor all those angels.

Through the years, we’ve continued to wear a white ribbon, and as we turned our combined efforts toward the implementation of SCID Newborn Screening our white ribbons, yet again, honor all those SCID angels and reminds us that SCID Newborn Screening is their legacy.

I’ve recently started making the white ribbon more identifiable with SCID and SCID Newborn Screening.  Below is a picture of the European Charm Awareness bracelet and a simpler White Leather Awareness Bracelet I made for myself.

This European Charm Awareness Bracelet has a white ribbon for SCID, the letters SCID, a footprint charm to represent the newborn heel stick test, a zebra bead to remind doctors  to “think Zebra” and a single red bead which represent the single drop of blood it takes to save the life of a child.

A much simpler bracelet, this is a white leather bracelet with a white awareness ribbon for SCID and SCID Newborn Screening.