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Monday January 18 1:08 PM ET 

Discarded blood could ease shortage
NEW YORK, Jan 18 (Reuters Health) -- Using blood that is currently
discarded could help US blood banks avoid blood shortages, according to a
New York physician.

Current blood bank practices and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
labeling requirements result in the discarding of blood that would be safe
to use, according to Dr. Victor Herbert, chief of the Hematology and
Nutrition Laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

For example, people with hemochromatosis have an excess of iron in the
blood, a condition that requires therapeutic bleedings.

The FDA states that blood obtained through such bleedings ''shall not be
used as a source of Whole Blood unless the container label conspicuously
indicates the donor's disease that necessitated withdrawal of the blood.''
Such labeling ''stigmatizes'' the blood as unsafe, according to Herbert.

He believes the FDA should make an exception for blood drawn from persons
with hemochromatosis, and that this blood should be labeled ``volunteer
donor.'' Hemochromatosis patients have elevated iron levels, ``which is
especially desirable for most blood recipients,'' said Herbert in an
interview with Reuters Health.

``Hemochromatosis patients should be allowed to donate blood like any other
donor,'' Herbert said.

But volunteers who give blood ``out of altruism and for no other reason''
make the best donors, according to the American Association of Blood Banks.
Such individuals are more likely to respond to donor screening questions in
an accurate manner.

According to Karen Shoos Lipton, CEO of the Association, blood from the
therapeutic bleeding of hemochromatosis patients ''is either thrown out or
used for research.''

In an interview, Lipton told Reuters Health that ``the first line of donor
screening is altruism.'' She said that allowing hemochromatosis patients to
donate blood removes the altruism, because they would be receiving their
treatment for free.

Lipton said that the problem is how to ``construct a rule that says yes to
using hemochromatosis blood but not blood received from other therapeutic
bleedings.''

``We have to have absolute rules to ensure the safety of patients receiving
transfusions,'' she added.