BBC Friday, 29 June, 2001, 04:51 GMT 05:51 UK

US restricts blood supplies

Doctors are warning of severe blood shortages By Jane Standley in New York

The United States has taken steps towards restricting who can donate blood in an attempt to protect the blood supply from mad cow disease.

The US Food and Drug Administration recommended that no-one who had spent three months or more in Britain or five years in other European countries in the 1980s and 1990s should be able to give blood.

The committee's recommendations are set to be implemented as soon as possible.

Doctors in New York are warning of severe shortages and even of hospitals having to close.

A spokeswoman for the advisory committee said it was intended that within a year all the restrictions would be fully implemented - but that steps would also have been taken to recruit more donors to replace the lost blood supplies.

The American Red Cross - which collects half of the US blood supply - was pushing for even stronger restrictions.

But other medical institutions argued that there must be more of a balance between ensuring the safety of the blood supply and the safety of patients who need blood during operations or transfusions.

There is no scientific proof that BSE - or mad cow disease - is transmitted by blood.

The new regulations will hit New York City hardest. The city currently has to import a quarter of the 2,000 pints of blood it needs every day from Europe and it cannot find enough donors.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

Answers

Is this a good case of bureaucratic cognitive dissonance? The cattle industry must be going nuts.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001