| Healthy Lifestyle On the Medical Front How Safe Is the Blood Supply? dmtContent 
How Safe Is the Blood Supply?
Safety Guarantees Give Blood,
Save Lives You may never need donated blood, but every day, thousands of people do. Roughly 40,000 units of red blood cells are used daily in the United States. Giving blood is easy and entirely safe. For the location nearest you, call the American Red Cross at (800) GIVE-LIFE or call your community blood center. | To ensure the safety of the blood supply, blood banks in the United States thoroughly check each unit of blood for infection and carefully screen the donors. Before they donate, all volunteers are asked for an extensive medical history to reveal potential exposure to infectious diseases. The history includes questions about foreign travel, high-risk sexual activity and intravenous drug use. The screening process aims to exclude anyone who might have been exposed to a blood-borne disease. For example, people who have traveled recently to an area where malaria is common will be temporarily excluded, even if they show no signs of the disease. Other safety measures are enforced as well. For example, blood donation in the United States is voluntary and without pay, to decrease the chance that patients at risk for blood-borne diseases would conceal facts about their lifestyle or travel history so that they could receive payment for donating blood. After giving blood, donors have an additional chance to exclude themselves by confidentially requesting that their blood not be used. That allows participation at times when people feel pressure to donate blood, such as at a workplace drive or when a family member is ill. The next level of safety involves the quality of the blood itself. Every unit is put through a battery of tests to check for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), HTLV-1 (a retrovirus similar to HIV) and syphilis. There are actually three tests for HIV, for more accurate testing of patients who have contracted the disease recently. With this combination of tests, anyone infected with HIV would test positive within approximately 10 days of infection, as opposed to the six months that had been the old standard. In addition, most blood donors give repeatedly, and therefore are tested repeatedly, decreasing the risk that they could transmit a blood-borne illness. To keep blood transfusions as safe as possible, new tests for infectious agents are constantly evaluated. Potentially transmissible diseases may be a high priority for concern because they are either serious (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as "mad cow disease") or common (West Nile virus infection). Next, the blood test developed to screen for the disease must be proven to be very effective. Despite extensive testing and safety measures, the system is not foolproof. There's still a very small risk of developing a transfusion-related disease. For example, the risk of acquiring HIV from a transfusion is approximately one in 2 million for each unit of blood received. These numbers are considerably lower than they were in 1987, when the American Red Cross estimated a risk of about one in 150,000. In addition, some rare diseases, such as malaria, can slip through simply because we are unable to test for them. Reducing the Risk In an emergency situation, the slight risk of infection from donated blood is often dwarfed by the potentially lifesaving benefits of the transfusion. Moreover, if you are facing elective surgery, you can reduce the risk of transfusion-related disease to the vanishing point by donating blood to yourself. (See Your Own Blood Supply.) In the future, other risk-reducing options may become available. Researchers are investigating new types of "artifical blood" or blood substitutes that may be just as effective as human blood components. Scientists also are working on ways to sterilize platelets and red blood cells with techniques similar to those currently being used to sterilize blood plasma. That would yield blood transfusions that had been cleared of all known viruses and bacteria. Another step you can take if you're facing surgery is to find out whether your hospital is accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. All hospitals and blood banks are inspected by the FDA, but the AABB also conducts a voluntary inspection and offers certification to topnotch facilities. Nearly all blood centers and about two-thirds of hospitals belong to the association. Call the blood bank at your hospital and ask if it's accredited by the AABB. If it's not, discuss your safety concerns with your surgeon, and ask if there's an accredited hospital you can use instead.
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