Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Blood Donations

You see it almost every day.  'The shortage of blood is a crisis in America, unless you give!  Donate Blood'. 

But they are some finicky folks.  They will not take your blood if you've been to certain countries in the past year, or if you've recently had body work done, or for any of many different reasons.  I understand why they have to be so selective, but if the crisis is as dire as they imply, shouldn't they at least take the blood, test it, and go from there. 

It seems to me that the number of malaria cases (the risk associated with taking blood from folks who have travelled to certain foreign lands) in the U.S. is considerably lower than most countries.  So it seems like there's a lot of missed blood opportunities by wholeheartedly rejecting blood donations from certain travelers. 

I don't really know what my point is.  But I wonder how much of a blood crisis there is if we can afford to dismiss so many different groups . ..  .

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