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Article: Sanguine: blood transfusions. (blood screening techniques)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- January 21, 1995
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DONATED blood has not only saved millions of lives; it has also caused thousands of deaths. A person who receives another person's blood can also receive his diseases. Sometimes the contamination is undetected, occasionally it is ignored. In the early 1990s many haemophiliacs started to die from AIDS, having taken infected blood-products in the 1980s, before these were routinely screened for HIV.
In the 1970s it became normal to separate blood into its components so that the red cells, platelets and plasma could be used for different jobs. This increased the risk, because it meant that products from the blood from an individual donation could end up inside several ...