Blood Donation Restrictions

What I find more interesting is that the US groups Europe into the UK and the rest.

I imagine it has something to do with CJD.

ETA: And possibly hepetitis B and HIV.
 
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Ivor the Engineer said:
What I find more interesting is that the US groups Europe into the UK and the rest.

I imagine it has something to do with CJD.

ETA: And possibly hepetitis B and HIV.
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Those things are mentioned specifically in the link I provided:

* Anyone who has risk factors for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) or who has blood relative with CJD

* Anyone who has had hepatitis since his or her eleventh birthday

* Anyone who has ever used injection drugs not prescribe by a physician, such as illegal intravenous (IV) drugs or steroids not prescribed by a physician

* Men who have had sexual contact with other men since 1977

* Anyone with a positive test for HIV (AIDS virus)
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UncaYimmy said:
Those things are mentioned specifically in the link I provided:
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Even though those are specifically mentioned, there're other things on the list based on perceived risk factors. I can't donate at all due to the "Men who have had sexual contact with other men since 1977" restriction over AIDS fears even though I'm negative.
 
What I'm asking is what those risk factors are. It seems to me if the specific restrictions are good enough for USA residents and presumably African, South American, Asian, and Australian residents, they must be singling out Europeans for some other reason.
 
I believe it's to do with our perceived risk of vCJD.

I am having difficulty linking, but if you go here: http://www.blood.co.uk/index.html and click on "who can donate" it will explain the restrictions we have here.

I used to donate regularly but now am not permitted to because of the meds I take for Crohn's disease.

ETA a bit more clicking around and I found a list of who cannot donate in the UK: https://secure.blood.co.uk/c11_cant.asp
 
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UncaYimmy said:
Among the restrictions for donating blood they list:
* Anyone who spent three months or more in the United Kingdom from 1980 through 1996
* Anyone who has spent five years in Europe from 1980 to the present

Why?
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Possibly Bovine spongiform encephalopathyWP ?

ETA -
It is believed by most scientists that the disease may be transmitted to human beings who eat the brain or spinal cord of infected carcasses.[3] In humans, it is known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD), and by February 2009, it had killed 164 people in Britain, and 42 elsewhere[4] with the number expected to rise because of the disease's long incubation period.[5] Between 460,000 and 482,000 BSE-infected animals had entered the human food chain before controls on high-risk offal were introduced in 1989.[6]
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Agatha said:
ETA a bit more clicking around and I found a list of who cannot donate in the UK: https://secure.blood.co.uk/c11_cant.asp
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It used to be the case that people who have had corneal grafts are not allowed to donate blood in the UK ... but I haven't checked in a couple of years. IIRC this is[was] also due to chances of passing on vCJD through blood products. This is why I am not allowed to donate.
 
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So, the USA is not accepting Europeans, but because the Europeans have no choice, they have to make do. Is that about right?
 
Well it doesn't really hurt US blood stocks to make this restriction over what amounts to a small theoretical risk. There would be a huge problem if we had to get our blood stocks from elsewhere though.
 
I donate blood regularly, and I was told the UK restrictions are for Mad Cow (BSE). They also ask about travel to Asia based on SARS. However I've travelled a lot in Europe and China but they've never rejected me, though they just recently added a test for Opiates (I passed :) )
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
What I find more interesting is that the US groups Europe into the UK and the rest.
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I'm not sure about others, but the place I donate to does not group the UK and continental Europe, they're separate questions. Which is perhaps why I haven't been rejected, I lived in Germany for a short while (4 months) but I've never been to the UK.
 
catbasket said:
Possibly Bovine spongiform encephalopathyWP ?

ETA -
It is believed by most scientists that the disease may be transmitted to human beings who eat the brain or spinal cord of infected carcasses.[3] In humans, it is known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD), and by February 2009, it had killed 164 people in Britain, and 42 elsewhere[4] with the number expected to rise because of the disease's long incubation period.[5] Between 460,000 and 482,000 BSE-infected animals had entered the human food chain before controls on high-risk offal were introduced in 1989.[6]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

While the number may rise, cases of vCJD are very much in decline and have been since 2000 when they peaked at 28 for the year. There was only 1 confirmed death from vCJD last year.

Linky.
 
BTW, In the UK you cannot donate within 28 days of returning from North America due to West Nile Virus.
 
Every country has such specific rules. Taken individually they make some sense.
Taken globally they are contradictory and rather chaotic.

I was in yesterday (pint 58), The 28 day US limit is still posted.
 
If I recall those restrictions are about mad cow disease (vCJD)transmission. I used to subscribe to a news group a while back that discussed it (Promed)
 
They stopped taking mine because my blood pressure got too high. I though that was dumb, whan a major way to lower a person's BP is to- drain blood!

Oh well, now I keep my AB(-) to myself.
 
As many have already mention it was an original requirement because of CJD transmission. However, it is still there because no one has bothered to remove it.
 
When I was a student in Arizona I went to donate blood. The nice lady asked, "Are you from south of the Sahara?"

"I'm from South Africa", I admitted.

"Oh. Is that south of the Sahara?" she inquired.
 
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