Despite the communication and interaction between regulatory agencies and blood banking organizations among developed countries, we cannot agree among ourselves on procedures for the management of the safety of the blood supply. We are driven by fear, politics and sometimes demagoguery. The examples that we give to the developing world are utterly embarrassing. There is no better example than the plethora of irrational measures adopted to prevent the theoretical risk of transmission of vCJD by transfusion. England burns the plasma from every unit of blood that it collects, and buys plasma from paid donors in the U.S. to fill its plasma fractionation plants.
Portugal imports plasma for transfusion from Germany.
Germany is considering discarding their plasma and obtaining it from other countries. The two blood systems in Canada play a game of Chicken Little to see who will defer more donors to protect the blood supply. This lack of coherence confuses everybody, including our own blood donors. ABC members want to contribute to the safety of the world blood supply, and are ready to participate of every effort undertaken by HHS and by other blood banking organizations. We believe that an international committee on blood safety should attempt to reach consensus about rational safety measures.