Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - Monday, November 18, 1996.
Officials of the federal Food and Drug Administration emphasized that there is no reason for New Yorkers to question the safety of the city's blood supply.
"If we find there is an imminent hazard to the public health, we can suspend operations at any blood center immediately," FDA spokesman Lawrence Bachorik told The New York Times in today's editions. "We haven't done that. We don't have a major degree of concern."
Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney, said their office, which also was looking into the allegations, had no immediate comment.
The investigation first was reported in this week's issue of New York magazine, which went on newsstands today. The magazine reported evidence that technicians in some laboratories of the New York Blood Center, which supplies 80 percent of the blood used by city hospitals, manipulated test results so that more blood donated to the center could be shipped to hospitals.
Citing blood center workers and documents, New York said the center also may have discarded records to cover up the manipulations.
In a written response to the magazine, blood center officials denied the allegations.
Bachorik told the Times the allegations against the blood center did not involve approving tainted blood as clean, but rather compromising safety precautions by failing to follow appropriate procedures.
Bachorik said there was no indication tainted blood had escaped the center.
Manhattan law enforcement officials who spoke to the Times on condition of anonymity said technicians may have tampered with results when a test yielded an unclear answer on whether blood contained an infectious agent.
The officials said that because of other safeguards in the blood supply system it was unlikely the practice would have affected the safety of the city's blood supply.
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