> I wonder what other stuff is being unwittingly transferred during standard blood transfusions. Back in the early 1990s my wife worked in epidemiology studies

> I wonder what other stuff is being unwittingly transferred during standard blood transfusions. Back in the early 1990s my wife worked in epidemiology studies at the national blood agency in our country. There was a lot of work to be done since at the time being a hemophiliac and receiving blood products meant a good chance of dying from AIDS or non-A non-B hepatitis (now known as Hep C). The agency did not test each and every donation for the presence of these pathogens because the available inexpensive tests had a poor success rate (high false positive) and the better tests were prohibitively expensive and the policy was "if we destroyed any suspected donations we'd have to destroy all of them". The idea of a screening questionnaire was floated but because most sexually transmissible diseases are also transmissible through blood, the question "Have you ever had sex?" would eliminate quite a few donations. They were a tough time for the blood agency. Thankfully technology has progressed and testing for known pathogens in a blood sample is rapid and inexpensive. Testing for unknown pathogens is still a challenge.