Giving blood

[dalewick]

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I live in a military town, they ask I you were ever stationed in Europe during certain time periods the late 80's and early 90's seem to be an issue. I was also in Egypt in 85 there seems to be an issue there also.

I dont have any idea why this is an issue.

Did you ever get insect bit in europe or egypt? If not, you cant be a carrier. I think they arn't taking blood due to some disease call Bab??????? something. Transmitted something like Lyme disease.

Dale

[Big Guy]

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I decided to do a little research;

Helmut R. Kiessling wants to help wounded warriors.

A retired Army colonel, Kiessling lives near Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, where he and his wife visit Marines from his son’s unit. But he is not allowed to donate blood to help wounded troops, even if it were for his son, who is serving in Afghanistan.

The Armed Services Blood Program does not allow troops, their families and Defense Department civilians to donate blood if they lived in Europe during certain times. The rule is designed to stop the transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of “mad cow disease.”

“It troubles me that I cannot support our military by giving blood,” Kiessling said in an e-mail. “Is that true for life, or is there a way to be ‘reborn’ as a blood donor?”

Well, Mr. Kiessling, you just paged The Rumor Doctor.

For now, the answer to Kiessling’s question is no. You can’t give blood to wounded troops if you lived in Europe for more than five years since 1980 or more than six months between 1980 and 1996, according to the Armed Services Blood Program. The ban also applies if you lived in Britain for more than three months between 1980 and 1996.

While the Food and Drug Administration has recommended such a ban for people living in European countries with reported or suspected cases of mad cow disease, the military has applied the ban to all of Europe to err on the side of safety, said Lt. Cmdr. Corey Jenkins, deputy director for policy at the Armed Services Blood Program.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak,” Jenkins said. “Once there’s a way we can prove that you’re not harboring the organism then we can accept you as a blood donor.”

But first, industry would have to develop an FDA-approved test for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and that’s not on the near-term horizon, said Dr. Richard J. Davey of the FDA’s Office of Blood Research and Review.

The protein involved in mad cow disease is hard to detect, and the disease’s incubation period is not known, Davey said.

While the risk of transmitting the disease is remote, it is still real: Three people in Britain have died after receiving blood from people carrying the disease who were symptom-free at the time, he said.

“It’s a very nasty disease, almost always lethal, so our position at this point is to be cautious, to be prudent and to do the best thing until further data gets developed to protect the blood supply from any even remote possibility of transmission of this disease,” he said.




http://www.stripes.com/blogs/the-rum...roops-1.129036

[dalewick]

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Big Guy, Thanks for the info. Great post.

Dale

[wac220]

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One of the other things that is a recent development (my the last two years) is that women can't donate plasma. There is something which they can transmit to the percipient of the donation. Once this rule change took effect, the blood bank was even more appreciative of my plasma donations. Sometimes, I think they would have bled me dry if I let them.