Posts filed under ‘Blood Donation’
Health – New Variant CJD – Blood Donor Ban (2004)
Barcode (ID): 03D0627011 
Main Search Term and Keywords: Blood Donation
Date of Broadcast: 16th March 2004
Clip Duration: 3 min 44 seconds
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Description: Anyone who has had a blood transfusion in the last twenty years could be at risk of the human form of mad cow disease. The Government is worried enough about contamination by variant CJD to ban anyone who has received a transfusion in that time from donating their own blood in future.
- People who have received blood transfusions since Jan 1980 are to be banned at donating blood
- Large Fuzzy section due to copyright
- Revealed elderly man died due to human form of BSE after receiving blood
- Department of Health says many donors will be affected
- No proven link between blood and
- 1998 – Order to remove white blood cells
- 2001 – CJD incidence panel – ‘No proof it could be transmitted through blood’
- 2002 – ‘Frozen plasma imported from America’
- 2002 – ‘Experiments show vCJD could be transmitted through blood more easily’
- Problem for Government is explaining the risk/benefits ratio – small, unproven risk of catching CJD through blood
- 139 people died from vCJD
- National blood service to ‘offset’ the panic
Web Link: Click here to access clip (then click on ‘search and browse’)
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Blood – HIV Positive Donation (1997)
Barcode (ID): 03B0242603 
Main Search Term and Keywords: Blood Donation
Date of Broadcast: 18th April 1997
Clip Duration: 1 min 24 seconds
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Description: A single blood donation given in the north-west has been found to be HIV positive. Three people have received the blood and contracted the HIV virus, and one has since died of an unrelated medical condition.
- 1986 – all blood donations tested for AIDS virus
- In one case, donations were not checked
- The chances that it will happen again is negligible
- Fill in form – if gay or drug users not allowed to give blood
- Test has critical weakness in that it can only detect antibodies to HIV
- Most donors are honest people but when the system fails, the consequences can be tragic
Web Link: Click here to access clip (then click on ‘search and browse’)
To download clip, you must login – instructions can be found on the NewsFilmOnline website or on the Accessing Videos page above
