Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1987. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International; Friday, 20 March 1987.
The report was prompted by a study of long-term leukemia patients at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, which found that 16 of 204 patients had been exposed to the AIDS virus through hundreds of blood transfusions between 1978 and 1986.
The CDC report acknowledged the risk is low for transfusion transmission of the AIDS virus -- human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV -- but it encouraged doctors to start AIDS testing on some patients.
"In the past, we've generally said the risk of a transfusion recipient was so low that it was not worth giving tests," said Dr. Thomas Peterman, a medical epidemiologist in the CDC's AIDS research program. "What we're saying now is that in some cases, it might be worthwhile."
A major reason for the tests is to "prevent transmission from infected people who don't know they're infected," Peterman said.
The AIDS blood test can determine if a person has been infected by the virus that causes the deadly disease, but infection does not necessarily mean that a person will develop AIDS symptoms.
AIDS is primarily spread by sexual contact, particularly among homosexual men, and by contaminated hypodermic needles.
The CDC report said the risk of transfusion recipients varies, depending primarily on how many transfusions they receive and if the donated blood came from an area with a high number of AIDS cases. It also said additional cases show people infected with the AIDS virus through blood transfusions have transmitted the virus to their sexual partners and unborn children.
Word of the imminent CDC recommendation leaked out earlier this week and the American Red Cross said Tuesday it supports the CDC recommendation.
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