It’s more like an anecdotal tale about how much times have changed in regards to the study of blood transfusion medicine and FDA deferral mandates. One of which is that you are not allowed to donate blood if you have spent 6 or more months in prison. Just like having sex with a man who has engaged in homsexual sex, the FDA has decided that six months of incarceration is an increaed risk factor for transmitting blood-born pathogens.
Rhogam is a blood derivative administered to Rh negative women who are pregnant, as well as post-delivery. It is basically an anti-D antibody which will clear any neonatal Rh positive red blood cells that can pass from the fetus into the mother’s bloodstream. This is done to prevent hemolytic disease of the newborn in subsequent pregnancies.
Remember what I talked about regarding prison time? Well, originally they made rhogam by stimulating the immune systems of Rh negative inmates by purposefully exposing them to Rh positive blood. The inmates would then in the coming weeks or months begin producing anti-D because their immune system sees the D antigen as foreign. They would then donate their blood and the plasma was separated, divided into doses, and administered to these Rh negative mothers-to-be.
Times have changed, and there’s your fun fact for Thursday.
Those policies always remind me of these posters that were at the Metrorail stations when I lived in Miami. Something like “Carmen slept with Juan who had slept with Tina who had slept with Carlos who had slept with… [lots more names]… who is HIV+. Please get tested,” and the contact for an organization offering free HIV testing.
Like the rules for offering the new papillovirus vaccine only to women below 19 “because later they won’t be virgins and will have the virus already.” Wouldn’t it make more sense to offer it to virgins? It’s not as if a test for virginity is very complicated to develop, people have been testing for virginity for thousands of years, hellooooo! I know both girls who lost their virginity at 10 (she didn’t realize it until years later) and women who haven’t lost theirs by 30 unless an archangel was somehow involved. It’s as if the government thinks there is a 19-birthday ritual where you go get yourself deflowered.
I’m not being very clear I think, but basically those decisions are made by people who don’t understand statistics at all and who would rather make a “black and white” decision than go and actually investigate each individual case.
In Spain all given blood is tested for HIV and having slept with someone who slept with someone who… doesn’t disqualify you from donating. If you are currently sleeping around then they do ask you to reconsider whether maybe you shouldn’t wait until your possible cases of cooties have had time to come to the light, but they will test everybody. Even if you are an intravenous drug user: they ask “do you share needles?,” not “ever shot up?”. They just test the blood like it’s their worst enemy. Dotty, when I went to graduate school in the US, all students from countries where English is not the official language had to take the TOEFL. If you were from South Africa and your mother language was Swahili, you didn’t have to take it… if you were from Spain and had done K-12 at the British Institute followed by college in one of those fancy places where all classes are in English, you had to take it. If you were Swedish, you had to take it. My Spanish college offers transcripts in Spanish, English or Catalan: some foreign universities refuse to accept the official transcript in English, you must get the Spanish version and pay an “official translator”.
When I got moved back into the US by my employer, for my 5th year of living Over There, I was supposed to take 120h of English classes. This was pre-defined and pre-paid; they contracted the hours without any regard to whether they were needed or whether our work schedules (80% travel, in my case) would allow for them.
I think it was Antigen who had to take the TOEFL and also had some sort of absurd problem regarding translating transcripts.
I’m going to get me a tortoise and name her Paperwork, I think.
Haze, won’t some schools give you credit for already having a degree from a university in the U.S.? Seems to me they used to do that back in the olden days when I was in grad school. (I had lots of friends who had to take the TOEFL at some point…) But yeah, schools are generally stupid about language-related things.
And, yeah, the blood donation thing makes no sense.
Good morning, beebs? Are you planning to post today?
I’m up. This has been the longest week ever. “Maybe I can take part of tomorrow off,” she said dreamily.
I had just been wondering about that the other day! I don’t know why I was… but I was thinking about court reporters and wondered how they could be so sure they got the transcripts perfect.
Now I know!
Gotta make breakfast- pancakes I think. To chocolate chip or not to chocolate chip, that is the question. Maybe banana pieces too.
{{{Puggy}}} I’m so sorry. She has had a long and very loving life though. You’re a good mama.
{{{Beebs}}} just cause I forgot to yesterday.
Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffienatin’ and such a bit later this mornin’. Da cave gets its annual termite checkup this mornin’ at nine, so I’ll head into work after that. Gotta have that termite checkup, after all.
[Ursula] You mustn’t lurk in hallways - it’s rude. One might question your upbringing. [/Ursula]
I think they only do that if you’ve graduate from a 4-year university or something of that sort. Not sure if it applies to degrees that take less time than that. But yeah, some schools do make exceptions for American degrees. Although there is this one school that makes all foriegn students take the TOEFL - including Canadians. :dubious:
The TOEFL is only valid for three years, I think, and I took mine back in my senior year, so I need to have new scores for my applications this fall.
Morning, everyone. TNC say, Gooo", which probably means morning. I think.
Hi, BooFae!
Okay. It’s not snowing. So today we can buy food. I hope. Please. And in an hour a friend is coming over for tea and Nat-holding so I can shower and put away laundry and stuff. Yay! And get dressed in something non-pj related.
Good morning. It’s a sunny Thursday in Boston. A little chilly, but sunny.
Nice to see you BooFae!!
I should have known that any link Doggio posts would be about Hockey.
That stinks about your test Haze.
How are you feeling today Pie? Are you starting to get better yet?
Beebs the MGH blood donation mobile is parked right down the street from my office. I hope you get lots of takers from the Financial District today.
So, yesterday I thought, “it’s Wednesday already? really? this week has been moving so fast.” Then today, I woke up thinking, “it’s not Friday yet, ugh.” It’s like there’s no in between with me. One extreme or the other or something. :: shrug ::
I now have The Canada Song from MST3K stuck in my head. Why you lousy, stinking, francophonic, bacon-lovin’ bastards… YouTube link for the uninitiated.
(I kid Canada. I forgive a lot for Nanaimo bars. I would forgive a world war for Nanaimo bars. Now I want Nanaimo bars. Nanaimo baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaars…)
They think you’ll forget the English you knew…?
