# Medical Q: eligibilty of blood donors? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 8, 2011, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929 "2011-08-08T10:41:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JuliaSqueezer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/82dd89/32.png) [@JuliaSqueezer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JuliaSqueezer)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/41 "2011-08-08T15:45:59Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Wow, that’s incredibly dumb. I can understand if you don’t want to do their work for them, but the right thing to do would be to complain to the supervisor about both cases, because the supervisors at least should understand why driving donors away is a bad strategy. I should have mentioned that in both cases, supervisors were “unavailable”. I did send a letter of complaint after the loud music experience, but have no idea if it had any impact whatsoever. I received no response. At any rate, I’m sure the supervisors have an understanding of the concept of not driving donors away. Real life execution of practices that keep donors coming back may be more complicated and difficult than we know. ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/42 "2011-08-08T16:32:44Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > Iron isn’t just found in red meat; it’s in leafy green vegetables, legumes, poultry, and fortified cereals and breads. ([Cite](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_iron#Food_sources_of_iron)) Some people just don’t eat that stuff, or they don’t eat enough to maintain a level high enough to be able to donate. Low iron also affects menstruating women, not just women who have recently been pregnant. (I’ve been deferred for both reasons.) This is why I have never been able to donate, due to heavy periods. I eventually gave up. I should probably try again sometime considering that I’ve put a much greater effort into upping my iron intake over the last few years. Wikipedia seems to think that 20% of women of childbearing age have the same issue, which is a decent dent in the donor population for a single problem if it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/43 "2011-08-08T16:50:35Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Wouldn’t you run into the other side of the problem - that most people won’t even show up if they know only so few are eligible in the first place? A large percentage of the company travels to India on company business. If they just mention that then those of us who travel will leave open spots on the donation schedule for those who can donate. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/44 "2011-08-08T17:12:31Z")
When I go to donate blood, it’s a crapshoot on the hemoglobin. There might be enough. There might not be enough. It’s really freaking irritating. At least my blood is dead-common A+, so I don’t feel too terribly crappy about it when I fail the tests. I know other women who are in the same boat as me regarding that. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/45 "2011-08-08T17:56:08Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > This sounds weird to me. Shouldn’t they keep a chart of you if you are a regular that notes this phenomenon and the doctor gives you an exemption? (They do have a doctor checking you out after filling out the questionnaire, right?) > > In our local health house, they do keep a file, and when you hit a round number like 10, 25, 40 donations you get a bronze, silver, golden etc. pin to wear and proclaim that you are a regular, conscientious donor. Others have responded with good reasons for this. I always figure they can’t know if I have contracted HIV since the last time I was there. How could they know? They run the test, I show as positive, they have to run a more a expensive test to be sure and it isn’t worthwhile except that they feel like they have to make sure so they can contact me. A doctor, even if one was on hand, wouldn’t know if I had HIV either until he saw the results of the HIV test. Don’t remember ever seeing a doctor at a blood drive though. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/46 "2011-08-08T20:25:59Z")
Quoth **constanze** : > [@](#): > > Forgot to mention in the OP: in another thread on the board, somebody mentioned a disease which is kinda like the opposite of anemia: instead of too low, people have too much iron in their blood. The treatment is to regularly let blood, but for some reason, this blood is thrown out. Could it not be diluted or filtered or whatever and still be used? Hereditary hemochromatosis. I have it, and I’m sure many other Dopers do, too (it affects something like 1 person out of 200 with European ancestry). It’s not, in itself, a counter-indication to using the blood, as long as the patient meets all the other criteria (my blood is still usable, for instance), nor is there any need to process it specially. It’s only if the person has used intravenous drugs, or had sex with a prostitute, or one of the others on the list of disqualifications that the blood would be thrown out. That said, it can be, practically speaking, a disqualification. Federal law prohibits an organization from accepting HH blood donors unless the organization also offers phlebotomies for ineligible HH patients (where the blood would be thrown out) free of charge. The rationale, as I understand it, is that if an ineligible person has HH, they don’t want to give that person an incentive to lie on the questionnaires in order to get treatment. Last I checked, most Red Cross regions had decided that the did not want to deal with that, and so would not accept any HH donors, but some Red Cross regions and some other blood banks do accept us. I personally donate with United Blood Services, which does. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/47 "2011-08-09T01:13:43Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > If there ever happens a case where blood supply - esp. of some rare combo - is too low at one (small rural\*?) hospital during a big emergency and somebody is severely injured or even dies because of that - would we, the public, hear about it? > > - If there is enough blood of this type in the next city, but it takes 45 min. of drive to get the blood bag, or it takes too long to thaw out the frozen reserves, or whatever during an emergency where every minute counts… > > Or is it impossible for the autopsy to tell “one more bag of blood would’ve saved him” instead of “his injuries were too severe”? > > Or would the hospital never disclose it because of fear of being sued? Hospitals try their best to keep their shelves stocked to avoid this sort of situation, but in some cases, yes, there can be an issue. In our area, hospitals get their blood from the local Red Cross and in an absolute crisis we can get blood in an hour. But we have all sorts of policies and backup plans to fall back on - if we’re running out of B negative, we can give O negative. Or if it’s not a woman of childbearing age at risk of making antibodies that can harm future pregnancies, we can go to B positive. Then to O positive. Meanwhile, we’ve called for more blood as soon as we things going south. When we need special blood for someone with antibodies against blood group antigens, and we don’t have time to type our units for those things, it’s the doctor’s call as to whether the risk of not transfusing the patient outweighs the risk of transfusing a potentially incompatible unit. At a certain point, if it’s really bad enough to be going through all the blood we have in the fridge, the blood isn’t staying in the patient long enough for his immune system to even notice it. Some trauma hospitals stop crossmatching after the 10th or 12th unit of blood, since you’ve completely replaced the blood volume by then and the crossmatch won’t mean anything. And it’s never “_one_ more unit would have saved him”. It’s whether or not they can stop the bleeding in the first place, really. For the specially typed blood, the Red Cross keeps a rare donor registry of people with different combinations of antigens on their cells - if you’re negative for a lot of things (through the magical luck of genetics), you’re very valuable because a patient with a lot of antibodies might be able to use your blood. We had a patient with a fun package of 6 antibodies and we had to put out a call to the Red Cross to help us find a compatible unit or two for the patient so she could have blood available if her hip replacement surgery required it. It took two weeks - the Red Cross didn’t have any frozen units, so they called in one of their special donors and took a unit from him, tested and processed it, and sent it to us. Trying to answer a couple more questions: As to the rules about homosexual men and blood donation, yes, the Red Cross has tried to get that changed, but the FDA is the one who sets the rules that all blood collection centers must abide by. some hospitals have their own blood donation centers and operate independently of the Red Cross, but they have to follow the same rules or get shut down. Low hemoglobin levels will get you deferred for donation, but it doesn’t mean you’re dying of anemia. Many women have levels lower than the Red Cross’ cutoff of 12.5 (especially around their menstrual period) but are asymptomatic. But taking a unit of blood out of you will drop your hemoglobin further and probably make you feel like crap - no point in making a donor sick to make a patient better. I’m trying to get some more up-to-date information on the actual testing done on the units of collected blood for you guys - I’m on the other end of that process so my knowledge of the collection side is a little rusty and I don’t want to be guessing. I do know that part of the issue is that not all of the bloodborne diseases are easy and inexpensive to test for, what with incubation periods and false positives and negatives, so it’s safer and cheaper to exclude larger groups of donors so they don’t miss some positives and make people sick. They choose to err on the side of caution, and I can’t say I blame them. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/48 "2011-08-09T01:28:15Z")
On hospitals getting blood quickly - the hospital I work for has a ‘call list’ of employees that have given blood at the hospital before, and have known blood types. In certain urgent situations, they’ll call/E-mail/page employees to see if they’re available to come over to the blood bank area and give on the spot. I’ve only been called once - O-positive, here. ---
**Author:** ![notsoheavyd3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/85e7bf/32.png) [@notsoheavyd3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notsoheavyd3)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/49 "2011-08-09T04:29:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That said, it can be, practically speaking, a disqualification. Federal law prohibits an organization from accepting HH blood donors unless the organization also offers phlebotomies for ineligible HH patients (where the blood would be thrown out) free of charge. The rationale, as I understand it, is that if an ineligible person has HH, they don’t want to give that person an incentive to lie on the questionnaires in order to get treatment. Last I checked, most Red Cross regions had decided that the did not want to deal with that, and so would not accept any HH donors, but some Red Cross regions and some other blood banks do accept us. I personally donate with United Blood Services, which does. That would explain why the doctor who thought I had hemochromatosis thought you couldn’t donate. (To be fair he was a gastroent so he wouldn’t know the ins and outs of blood donation.) Oh well, I’m one of those that has a perm-ban for donation. (I managed to get hepatitis and jaundice a few years back. They never did figure out the underlying cause. (But then again I wasn’t a donor before so looks like in the end nothing changed.) Still I find it amazing that they actually disqualify people for living in Europe for a couple of years because of vCJD. (I mean people really don’t seem to get how rare vCJD actually is.) ---
**Author:** ![chaoticbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/50 "2011-08-09T05:15:08Z")
Not related to blood donation, but production of [blood products](http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=3732): a bunch of Canadians were infected with Hep C and HIV back in the 80’s when my state (go Arkansas!) provided a bunch of tainted blood to produce drugs for hemophiliacs. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2011, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/51 "2011-08-09T06:08:00Z")
I wonder if the sign is supposed to mean that only 7% are ever eligible, or only 7% at a given time. I’m curious about the distinction because there are so many things [on the list](http://chapters.redcross.org/br/northernohio/INFO/eligibility.html) that will knock you out for days to a year, if not or more: tattoos, malaria, and travel outside of U.S. as mentioned, questional piercings, being pregnant or having completed/terminated a pregnancy within the past six weeks, STDs even if treated, lyme disease even if treated, cancer until five years cancer-free, a whole list of medications (including asprin in some cases!) that block you from 36 hours to 3 years, recent vacines, recent surgery/dental surgery, hepatitis exposure, beginning treatment for diabetes, having an epileptic seizure within the last three months… All these things add up to a fairly high % of the population. ---
**Author:** ![green2gold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4bbf92/32.png) [@green2gold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/green2gold)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/52 "2011-08-10T03:17:25Z")
The perpetual low status of blood has caused the medical community as a whole to take another look at blood donation especially in the Intensive Care setting where I work. The head of the Cardio-Thorasic Surgery Department just gave a lecture on our new protocols for transfusions. While the Red Cross’s cutoff for donating is Hg of 12.5 we might not transfuse until the Hg is 7. Avoiding all the medical gobilly gook basically we are moving away blood transfusions as a whole. Sometimes they are not the answer. Obviously in a hemorrhaging patient the answer is to stop the bleeding and to give blood to buy time to stop the bleeding but blood is not the appropriate response to low circulating volume. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/53 "2011-08-10T04:45:27Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > … there are so many things [on the list](http://chapters.redcross.org/br/northernohio/INFO/eligibility.html) that will knock you out for days to a year, if not or more: tattoos, malaria, and travel outside of U.S. as mentioned, questional piercings, being pregnant or having completed/terminated a pregnancy within the past six weeks, STDs even if treated, lyme disease even if treated, cancer until five years cancer-free, a whole list of medications (including asprin in some cases!) that block you from 36 hours to 3 years, recent vacines, recent surgery/dental surgery, hepatitis exposure, beginning treatment for diabetes, having an epileptic seizure within the last three months… > > All these things add up to a fairly high % of the population. Perhaps of related interest, generally the same federal restrictions also apply to (fertility-related) egg donation, and the percentage of would-be donors who are screened out is also quite high. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/54 "2011-08-10T09:11:27Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > If there ever happens a case where blood supply - esp. of some rare combo - is too low at one (small rural\*?) hospital during a big emergency and somebody is severely injured or even dies because of that - would we, the public, hear about it? > > - If there is enough blood of this type in the next city, but it takes 45 min. of drive to get the blood bag, or it takes too long to thaw out the frozen reserves, or whatever during an emergency where every minute counts… > > Or is it impossible for the autopsy to tell “one more bag of blood would’ve saved him” instead of “his injuries were too severe”? > > Or would the hospital never disclose it because of fear of being sued? They would move the patient, not the blood. If someone is so seriously injured, they would be transferred to a magnet hospital. That would be a level one trauma center in a large city. In central Washington there are many small hospitals that routinely transfer their most serious patients to Seattle or Spokane. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2011, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929/55 "2011-08-10T12:14:16Z")
Re. small sources, one of my customers in Costa Rica was one of the country’s three O- donors. They had full contact information for the other two, in case one of them got injured. As for eligibility, many of the reasons are, as **elfkin477** mentions, temporary or fixable. Back when I was in college, you could be rejected for high BP but not for low - last month, I got rejected on low BP with 10.98/6.00… the requirement was a minimum high of 11.00 (argh!). Low BP is common in my area and apparently some people pop caffeine pills before going to donate (I won’t). Others aren’t exactly as stated: you need to be below a certain age _to donate for the first time_, but long-time donors who are in good health don’t get rejected when they go over that age, at least in Spain (mind you, medical personnel here also have access to your full medical history; I’ve been to the gastroenterologist with my mother this morning and the doc had already checked possible secondary effects on every medication Mom takes, when did she start taking each one, etc.). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/medical-q-eligibilty-of-blood-donors/591929.md?page=2)