There you are. No problem Upthehatters, don't mind if we rip your spleen out to test quickly?

My view would quickly become, sod it I'll keep my infected blood.

Exactly, before going into the dark side of science, while doing my PhD I worked at the European center that collects CJD samples, we treated them as infectious disease samples and believe me the UK is not the only country regularly reporting a handful of cases...CJD also has genetic determinants

Very pleased to have read this - now I no longer have to feel guilty every time I can't make it to the blood donor session being held in the village.

I tried to give blood in the US. They refused me because i had lived in the UK during the sensitive period. I was so insulted. I told them I am very very careful about what I eat, I stopped eating beef before the alert, in fact I am mostly vegetarian; eat meat perhaps once every 3 months and then only organically fed. I am paranoid about AIDS or any infections. I have a rare blood type. I am disease free (except being slightly hypothyroid), fit (excellent cholesterol levels) and have a very healthy diet, I have regular check -ups that prove it, but they still refused. I felt like a leper.

Yeah, because nobody lies about anything or is ever wrong. Idiot. WHy do you think they test your blood even after asking you questions? Because they want to confirm that you didn't lie to them?

Hey man back off. Didn't you know she's paranoid about catch the AIDS? We should just take her blood, no questions asked.

As for telling them you are healthy, until you are able to prove it, they are right not to take risks. Sadly, I know some people who use giving blood as a sort of "free health check" service - they are NOT in the monogamous, stable relationship the form requires you to have. I think the "no gays" thing is unfair as quite a few gays I know are totally monogamous and take sexual health waaaay more seriously than your middle of the road hetero macho / disco bunny.

And this sort of thing was already discussed...

I posted this on the other thread already, but seeing as it's for a good cause, I'll post it again here:

This is another option if you want to do you bit but can't donate blood here: Stem cell donation
Chances that they'll call you up are pretty small, and it's a bit more invasive than normal blood donation but they can often take peripheral stem cells(instead of needing to take bone marrow from your hip) now which is more or less like a normal blood donation, just with a couple of growth factor injections a few days before. They can also use umbilical cord blood if you happen to be pregnant.

There is heaps of info on the website and the database is worldwide so who knows who you could end up helping.

There have been so many tragedies caused by contaminated blood donation- that it is no surprise that Government are being extra cautious, despite systems being in very short supply, not just because of Aids and CJD, but hepatitis B, etc. I gave blood regulary but cannot give here.

Here is the first part of a Wiki link:

Contaminated haemophilia blood products

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contaminated haemophilia blood products were a serious public health problem in the (late) 1970s through to the mid 1980s. These products caused large numbers of haemophiliacs to become infected with HIV and hepatitis C. The companies involved included Alpha Therapeutic Corporation, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc., a unit of Rhone-Poulenc S.A., Bayer Corporation and its Cutter Biological division, Baxter International and its Hyland Pharmaceutical division .[1] Estimates range from 6,000 to 10,000 haemophiliacs in the United States becoming infected with HIV.[1][2]
It is believed that these companies recruited and paid donors from high-risk populations including former prisoners, injection-drug users, and plasmapheresis facilities in prisons (e.g. Arkansas Prison Plasma Scandal) and especially in cities already having large numbers of these persons to obtain blood plasma used for the production of Factor VIII and Factor IX. These companies allegedly failed to follow United States federal law mandates to exclude donors with a history of viral hepatitis. The medicine was made using pools of plasma from 10,000 or more donors, and since HIV at that time couldn't be screened out, the plasma carried a high risk of passing along the disease.[3]
Factor VIII essentially provides the missing ingredient without which haemophiliacs' blood cannot clot. By injecting themselves with it, haemophiliacs can stop bleeding or prevent bleeds from starting; some use it as many as three times a week.[3]
Contents

[hide]

• 1 Initial concerns
• 2 Sales to Asia and Latin America
• 3 Specifics by country
  • 3.1 Canada
  • 3.2 France
  • 3.3 Iran
  • 3.4 Iraq
  • 3.5 Ireland
  • 3.6 Italy
  • 3.7 Japan
  • 3.8 Portugal
  • 3.9 United States
• 4 References

It was here in the US, they never tested me, they just saw on the form that I had lived in the UK during that time and refused me. Anyway my AIDS tests are negative, not that I ever worry about that, they are welcome to my yearly checkup records.

Does that mean if they test me in Switzerland and find everything OK I can give blood? I didn't think that there was a blood test for CJD, if so I would have one.

As far as I understand it Scrappie is in sheep, BSE is in Cows, when it jumps to humans it is CJD. CJD can occur independent of BSE but it is rare.

Mad cow disease has been in found in almost every European country-probably because the UK feed was transported all over the world. It was in Switzerland too- in fact there was a case this year. It is in Canada and the US. Althougth the US says that these are just cattle brought in from Canada.

The Welsh farmers knew about the connection early on when they stopped their kids from eating beef in school meals. that is when I stopped, then I tracked every country that had BSE and refused to buy beef for the family.

Beef is often a dirty meat to me here in the US, it is pumped full of unnatural products and often tests positive to Ecoli. Ecoli and salmonella are not considered adulterants, the alarm bell s only raised when someone gets sick.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011...ow?ps=sh_sthdl

Oprah got into big trouble, a major lawsuit, when she aired a program in 1996 on BSE.

http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1997Q2/eat.html

Are there any tests a Brit can do, to prove their blood is acceptable, or is it just a blanket ban?

Maybe a blood test soon...

Crap. I have low iron.
But I'm O- so if anyone ever needs blood you can call me.
(well, if I ever get back to CH.... argh!)