Speaking on the radio 4 Farming Today programme, Dr Stephen Dealler, microbiologist at Burnley Hospital, Lancs, suggested that not enough was known about the infectivity of bovine blood to rule out the possibility of transmitting infectivity. In my opinion, because it is a fatal disease, with no method of treatment and can be passed on to humans, it was a very silly thing to do,' he said. An article in the Sunday Times cited a MAFF figure of 22,000 tonnes of bovine material as being used in cattle feed each year. 13 Canada to ban French blood donors Canadian federal health department officials have directed blood collecting agencies that any person resident in France for a cumulative total of six months or more between 1980 and 1996 is not to be permitted to be a blood donor. It has become apparent that a real risk of acquiring vCJD existed in France between 1980 and 1996,' a Health Canada spokesperson stated.
Regional agencies have three months to implement the measure.
At the beginning of September Australian authorities said they were still considering the case for banning donated blood from people resident in the UK during the 1980s and 1990s, after expressing concern that they may face serious blood shortages if such donors were excluded. With the main blood collecting agency, the Red Cross, they issued a statement urging all donors in the meantime to continue to give blood. Then on September 18 it was reported that the health authorities were meeting to consider when a ban should be introduced, with the likelihood that it would be instituted by January or February 2001. A spokeswoman said that since July the view had been that UK visitors should be 'deferred' from giving blood. An estimated five percent of blood supply would be lost by banning donors who had been resident in the UK for six months or more.