First of all, the questionnaire does not ask anything about “Africa.” The word “Africa” does not appear in it; it asks if the donor has been to, or received blood transfusions from, a number of countries. Some of those are African countries. But it also asks about England and Europe. The statement that the questionnaire asks if the person has “lived in (with?)” someone “From an African nation” is a lie.
How are the questions not meaningful? I don’t mean to harp on this, but,
Have you, or the authors of the article you quoted, actually done an analysis of the percentage risks involved with the groups identified in the questionnaire?
Have you asked a psychometrist to test the CBS’s questionnaire for accuracy and validity against a test of questions of your design?
My guess is the answer to both is “no.”
You may think, without studying the issue, that it’s not logical to ask if the person has practised safe sex, but unless you’ve actually studied the issue I don’t see how you can make that claim with any authority. The practice of conducting a survey is not a simple one, Cowgirl; people will answer questions in different ways depending on what you ask. For instance, if you ask “Do you practice safe sex?” you’ll get a lot of people answering “Yes” when what they really mean is “usually.”
The way the questionnaire is written is very clear and logical to me; it eliminates anyone in a high-risk demographic. That’s their prerogative and it should be respected.
Nobody claims the test is perfect. If answered honestly would it prevent a lot more risky people then it would allow?
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The general public needs to have confidence that their blood supply is safe. Furthermore they people running the blood bank are responsible for ensuring that it is safe.
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There are other ways to increase the supply that don’t involve fraud.
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Others might think twice because they’re afraid of catching some disease.
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Complete strangers might not want you making decisions for them.
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That doesn’t seem like a bad question to me given that homosexual men are more likely to have AIDS then a heterosexual male.
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Do they only ask this question of black people? If not then it isn’t racist.
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It sounds reasonable to exclude people who belong to high risk groups.
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That’s unfortunate but it doesn’t sound unreasonable to me.
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Do they have the time to take with every potential doner?
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You might be right. Of course that doesn’t mean you have any right to lie to the blood bank so you could donate.
Marc
None of which are 100% accurate, which explains why the Red Cross would feel a need to exclude everyone with a history of viral or unexplained hepatitis.
i have always wanted to donate blood. if i could, i would. but i have a form of thrombocytopenia. instead of having the normal billions of platelets, i have somewhere in the thousands. i bruise easily and heal slowly. now i could lie about my condition because i want to be a good person and donate my blood, but what good would it do? none. it would hinder rather than help.
as much as i would like to donate blood, i could and would not because let’s face it: no one wants my blood. don’t donate blood if there is any chance you could give someone else a disease. while you’d think you’re helping and warm fuzzy feelings and puppies and kittens and all of that, you could kill someone.
Are they still doing that for every hepatitis person? My mother had hep A as a kid (~age 11-12) and could never donate before, but recently the rules changed in CA and now they are happy to take her (which is nice, since my dad the fanatic blood donor can’t do it any more). We don’t have the Red Cross locally however; another organization does blood donations.
I can understand your frustration, but this is very shortsighted.
As was said before, blood is only good for so long, and the Red Cross and other organizations don’t usually get flooded with donations. You want them to invest in a storage system so that every pint gathered after 9/11 could have been kept? I am sure you can see that this would be an incredible waste of resources, since the coolers would sit empty most of the time, if not all the time, after the 9/11 blood expired.
Perhaps you think the Red Cross should have turned people away rather than take blood they later couldn’t use? Given the shortage of willing donors in this country, that would be a foolish policy indeed. It turns out few victims of 9/11 needed blood, but the wonderful legacy of that tragedy is that people who had never given before got the guts to try. It added people to the rolls, let them see that it’s not a difficult process.
I hope most people understand that, and don’t decide to punish those who need blood by boycotting the Red Cross over having too many donations for one week in a decade.
I concur. As a slight hijack, not only does the extra storage cost alot of money, but to maintain it in a state of calibration runs into the thousansds of dollars per unit every year or two.
The blood system is not perfect. But I would like to think that we err on the side of caution. And because of that, the supply is alot safer than it used to be. Does that mean that sometimes due to questioning some people get screened out that are perfectly healthy? Yes. Does it mean that the vast majority of those who should not give are screened out? Yes. Does the blood system in Canada need more donors? Yes. However relaxing screening policies is NOT the right answer. More Canadians stepping forward is. And that is the way we are going about it. Canada has wonderful donors, people that come and give of themselves to help others that they will never meet. 3% of the eligible population donate regularly (2x/yr). If this number were at 5-6% then the needs of Canadians would be met. This would also put us on pace with the US, Australia and most other Western nations. The goal of CBS is to have the safest blood supply in the world, and do it cost effectively so that we can afford to maintain it in perpetuity, as well as handle all of the R&D, etc that falls under our responsibility. That is a noble goal, especially when you consider why the agency is here: to save lives. To all of you that donate, thank you. To those that would like to try, I heartily encourage you to do so. To those that have been deferred from donating whether temporarily or permanently, thank you for trying. It is appreciated, and if you are allowed to in the future, please try again. To those of you that are frustrated with the entire process for any of the reasons you provided (deferred, the time it takes, etc) then please do not discourage others from donating. Saving a life is a noble thing to do, though admittedly the donation process is not for everybody. But if you can do it, pleased try. If you cannot, then at least encourage other to do so. You never know when you might need it as well, and wouldn’t it be nice if blood was there for you 100% of the time and you knowing that when you woke up that it helped to save your life, and that it was SAFE. OK… throne speech over. Thanks for listening
I actually didn’t donate right after 9/11 for this very reason. I figured that for some weeks afterward there would be a trough of donations, and my blood would be more useful then. Even if there was a need, blood donated 3,000 miles away would be unlikely to have been of use in New York.
What I hoped would happen is that those people who donated after 9/11 would discover that giving blood is not frightening, and would come back and donate more. That would be one of the few good things that came out of the tragedy. CC, has the donation rate increased? My local blood center was pretty empty last week when I donated, during a O shortage, so it doesn’t seem like it to me.
Again, I can only speak for in Canada, not in the US, but yes, our donor base has increased. It isn’t enough quite yet, but another 150,000 donors across the country by 2005 will help ensure a viable blood supply for the years to come.
