Answering yes to one or more of these behavioral questions results in the donor's indefinite deferral, in accordance with FDA guidelines. High-risk donors who may not wish to reveal risk behaviors privately to the nurse may confidentially exclude their unit of blood by peeling a bar code sticker off the CUE form and placing it on their donation record. Donors are given a telephone number to call within 24 hours and a special identification code to use, if for any reason after leaving the donation site they decide their blood should not be used. In addition to maintaining local records that identify all unsuitable donors, the Red Cross has been maintaining a national computerized database of more than 250,000 donors who are deferred from donating blood due to a history of risk-associated behavior, signs or symptoms that could be associated with various transmissible diseases, or a positive result for any of the viruses tested. Every donation received by the Red Cross is cross-checked against these Red Cross deferred donor databases to determine if the blood should be destroyed based on past test results.
Blood is tested for evidence of transmissible disease.
Every unit of blood is tested for evidence of exposure to viruses that might cause diseases, including HIV, two strains of hepatitis and a number of other diseases. If testing indicates that a unit of blood may pose a threat, it is destroyed. The donor is appropriately disqualified and the donor is entered in the deferred donor database. New tests are being evaluated continuously. In March 1992, the Red Cross implemented a significantly improved test to detect hepatitis C infection.