3 ms·

While your article calls out PFAS in firefighters, there are people who for other reasons need blood letting. It's one of my biggest gripes with blood donation

While your article calls out PFAS in firefighters, there are people who for other reasons need blood letting. It's one of my biggest gripes with blood donation in the US is that those people are prohibited from donating blood because they're getting "value" from doing so (instead of having to pay somebody to draw their blood the red cross would be drawing it for free -- note, the blood isn't unusable for any other reason than drawing it provides value to the donater). Like you have a population that must give blood by some means and regularly the various blood banks complain about a shortage and they never seem to be able to put two and two together ...

tait 4y ago
I would love to see more donor centers allow hemochromatosis patients to donate. I think there is not actually regulatory ban. Last I looked into this, it was because of the conflict of interest - the FDA requires blood from donors with hemochromatosis be labeled as such. And even that requirement can be worked around. See, for example, https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/blooddonor/donationtypes/hemochromatosis.html https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/blooddonor/donationtypes/hemo.... Background, most centers charge for therapeutic phlebotomy but obviously not for volunteer blood donation. The exception is permissable if the center agrees to allow the patient's blood to be drawn for free, whether or not they would qualify as a blood donor. The issue with "getting value" from donating is that people sometimes lie in order to be able to get that value. The downstream issues can be very painful - I have personally taken care of patients who got HIV or hepatitis from blood transfusion. I am pretty sure any of them would emphatically agree it is important to ensure the blood supply is as safe as possible. So it can be done, but it has to be done carefully.
kyleyeats 4y ago
This actually reversed just this year, with most major blood banks (following the example of the Red Cross) now allowing donations from diagnosed hemochromatosis patients.

tait 4y ago

I would love to see more donor centers allow hemochromatosis patients to donate. I think there is not actually regulatory ban. Last I looked into this, it was because of the conflict of interest - the FDA requires blood from donors with hemochromatosis be labeled as such. And even that requirement can be worked around. See, for example, https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/blooddonor/donationtypes/hemochromatosis.html https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/blooddonor/donationtypes/hemo.... Background, most centers charge for therapeutic phlebotomy but obviously not for volunteer blood donation. The exception is permissable if the center agrees to allow the patient's blood to be drawn for free, whether or not they would qualify as a blood donor. The issue with "getting value" from donating is that people sometimes lie in order to be able to get that value. The downstream issues can be very painful - I have personally taken care of patients who got HIV or hepatitis from blood transfusion. I am pretty sure any of them would emphatically agree it is important to ensure the blood supply is as safe as possible. So it can be done, but it has to be done carefully.

kyleyeats 4y ago

This actually reversed just this year, with most major blood banks (following the example of the Red Cross) now allowing donations from diagnosed hemochromatosis patients.