AEGiS-WSJ: Blood Bank To Use 2nd Test to Reduce AIDS Risk

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1984. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Blood Bank To Use 2nd Test to Reduce AIDS Risk

Wall Street Journal - March 3, 1984

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Irwin Memorial Blood Bank here said it will add a second test to screen out blood from donors who may be at risk of developing AIDS, the usually lethal Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

The new test will cost just $5 per unit of blood but will force the blood bank to discard about 6% of the 10,000 units the blood bank draws each month. Dr. Herbert Perkins, the blood bank's scientific director, said the test will "enhance the safety of the community's blood supply and provide an added safety net for screening donors at high risk for AIDS. "

Nationwide, at least 70 AIDS patients, 46 transfusion recipients and 24 hemophiliacs treated with plasma products, appear to have blood ties to the mysterious epidemic. AIDS causes the collapse of the immune systems of its victims, leaving them vulnerable to rare cancers, pneumonia and other socalled opportunity infections.

High risk groups for developing the disease include male homosexuals with multiple partners, heroin addicts, and Haitians.

Irwin Memorial has long tested blood for evidence of past infection from hepatitis-B. That test will continue to be used. The new test, known as the core-antibody test, will tighten the screening against hepatitis-B and detect past infection of another strain of the virus known as non-A-non-B.

Irwin said that about 90% of all people in the high-risk groups for developing AIDS carry the core antibody for hepatitis. "The test therefore will help ensure that no blood given by a donor at high risk for AIDS will be transfused," the blood bank said.

Irwin said that it will begin the new test May 1. The blood bank added that it will soon offer donors a discrete post-donation method of recalling their donation if they believe their blood may not be safe to transfuse. The measure is designed to accommodate some gays who are pressured to donate blood during an office blood drive.

Irwin, like most blood banks around the country, currently screens for AIDS by asking donors a series of medical questions. This "voluntary deferral" program was the subject of a page one story in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

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