Blood Donations Face More Scrutiny
W A S H I N G T O N, June 28 -- An advisory panel to theU.S. government voted today to further restrict blooddonations from people who traveled or resided in Europe duringthe height of the mad cow disease epidemic.
The Food and Drug Administration's advisers saidpeople who spent three months or more in Britain from 1980 to1996, and five years or more in any European country from 1980to the present should not be allowed to donate blood.
The panel had recommended in January that the United Statesextend its ban on collections from people who spent six monthsin Britain during the mad cow crisis to 10-year residents ofFrance, Portugal or Ireland.
The hope is to keep the U.S. blood supply from beingtainted with the human form of mad cow disease, called variantCreutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
The FDA will use the panel's suggestions to revise itscurrent policy, which bans donations from people who lived inor traveled in Britain for more than six months from 1980 to1996.
Scaring Donors
Panel members also worried the ban would scare offdonors and contribute further to blood shortages.
"I don't want to kill people with our recommendations andit's conceivable we could do that," panelist Kenrad Nelson ofJohns Hopkins University said during discussion.
Under the recommendations, military personnel who spent sixmonths or more on a European base from 1980 to 1996 should bebarred from donating. Anyone who received a blood transfusionin Britain from 1980 until now should not donate either, thepanel said.
The suggested restrictions are less onerous than those theAmerican Red Cross plans to implement in September, which wouldbar donors who have spent three months or more in Britain andsix months or more anywhere else in Europe since 1980.
State health commissioner and former U.S. Surgeon GeneralAntonia Novello told the panel that under an extended ban, 200patients per day, or 75,000 patients a year, would go withoutneeded transfusions.
Call for Blood Donor Campaign
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