I know once upon a time, I couldn’t donate blood because of fresh tattoo work. IIRC, it was something like, if you had a tattoo within the last X months, you couldn’t donate.
Anyone know what the rules are now? Seeing as my tattoo artist (and most of them, actually) doesn’t autoclave and reuse needles, but uses new ones for each piece, it seems an outdated concern, HIV-wise.
Different blood banks might have different rules regarding tattoos and peircings.
At our local blood bank we are asked a series of questions before every donation, and not one of them has to do with tattoos or peircings.
From their website:
*
I need to wait one year before donating if…
…
I have gotten a tattoo or had ear or body piercing done by a non-professional in the last 12 months (professional piercing requires no waiting)…*
It was my understanding that Hepatitis was the major concern with tattoos/donations.
You might want to check with the blood bank you are interested in donating at to see if they require a waiting period after tattoos/peircings or not.
I seem to remember donating in the United States still requires a waiting period. The explanation would be that while many tattooists and piercers are of course quite diligent about safety (I know my piercers have all been extremely careful, and they furthermore insisted that I watch them take the needles out of their packages, and the other equipment they used in the process was autoclaved) there’s very little regulation of the industry and a lot of people don’t do their homework before getting tattooed. Even a ‘professional’ might be either incompetent or lazy and not maintain adequate safety precautions, and without governmental or private regulatory oversight, it would be easy for one to get away with lax sterilization procedures.
You say that no one asked you questions about tattoos or piercings where
you dontated blood, then give a quote from their own web site concerning the rules about tattoos and piercings?
The people working there don’t insill in me a great security about our nation’s blood supply!
apologies for the slight hijack.
and its also a UK thing. I survived kidney cancer ( I hope ha ha!) and as I was getting the staples snipped out my chest I was fumbling through my wallet and the nurse noticed my blood donor card. “you can throw that away now… your blood can’t be used anymore…” well I suppose she was right but apart from all the rest of the shoot that was going through my head it was kinda another big drop.
I never did check with the blood transfusion service cause I could see the logic in what was said and certainly didn’t need any other rejection.
I get ragged now when my employer has blood donation sessions and I don’t go and all my co-workers think am either mean or a wimp scared of needles. Is it true? can cancer survivors donate blood?
Well my mistake, we are asked several questions that they must check off on our paperwork, but there are several questions that we can check off ourselves. If memory serves, one of those questions actually is pertaining to tattoos/peircings (most of them are related to surgeries, illnesses, etc. I think) but it’s not one of the questions they actually ask us during intake (most of the questions they ask are related to drug use, sexual activities, leaving the country.)
It’s actually a very nice facility. They’ve got all their ducks in a row, don’t worry. 
Your nurse might have been wrong! You might have to wait a while.
*Cancer
Eligibility depends on the type of cancer and treatment history. If you had leukemia or lymphoma, including Hodgkin’s Disease, you are not eligible to donate. Other types of cancer are acceptable if the cancer has been treated successfully and it has been at least 5 years since treatment was completed and there has been no cancer recurrence in this time. Some low-risk cancers including squamous or basal cell cancers of the skin do not require a 5 year waiting period.
Precancerous conditions of the uterine cervix do not disqualify you from donation if the abnormality has been treated successfully. You should discuss your particular situation with the health historian at the time of donation*
From the American Red Cross
I tried look up info of the UK but their web site is confusing and has a series
of Flash quesions to determin if you are eligable. If you answer yes to
having had a major surgery, they just say to call! 0845.7.711.711
I gave blood just last week (snippets on the news about shortages of blood following Hurricane Katrina reminded me that it had been a few months) and they asked me about tattoos.
I did a bit of online research and here’s what I found:
Here are the FDA requirements as listed in the CFR (Under Subpart A - § 640.3 - Suitability of donor). They don’t seem to be very restrictive or comprehensive and I couldn’t find anything else in the CFR that specified blood donor elegebility requirements or a questionnaire.
However, the FDA has put this out. It’s a draft of a full lenght questionnaire for blood donors. Go down to Appendix A for the actual questionnaire. I couldn’t find any kind of final document on the FDA website.
But I did find this. It’s a link to the AABB* Donor History Questionnaire, Educationional Materials, etc. It looks like it’s based on the draft and the comments made on the draft. And from what I can gather, the AABB guidelines appear to be FDA approved.
*I couldn’t find anywhere on the site that indicated what AABB stands for. I assume it’s “American Association of Blood Banks”, but I couldn’t confirm it.