Consequently, blood has become much safer but is in increasingly shorter supply and very expensive. Like most efforts to improve health care, the drive to improve safety has sparked heated scientific and political debates. The US blood safety vigilance system is composed of a network of interwoven programs, now organized under a formal structure, with the assistant secretary of health and various committees bearing overall responsibility. But while safety and economics are intrinsically linked, the government regards them as distinct entities and places them under the supervision of 2 different federal committees. While the FDA's Blood Products Advisory Committee is confined to the medical and scientific aspects of safe blood procurement, the HHS's Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability examines the economic, legal, and public health implications of blood safety issues.
Complications arise when concerns over financial feasibility conflict with consensus over safety.
Furthermore, this state of affairs is impacted by the fact that the overseeing committees may not have representatives from physician or hospital groups or even from the blood banking industry. As predicted, not only were donors and recipients unnecessarily alarmed, but also the public health rewards were minimal, if nonexistent. Surely this measure can only contribute further to the spiraling cost of blood and benefit the legal profession. The issue of ULR can be approached medically on a more rational basis. A number of studies have shown that transfused leukocytes are immunosuppressive, can lead to severe febrile reactions, and can initiate cytomegalovirus infection in individuals with weakened immune systems.