Reasons for Denied Blood Donors

Video Transcript

In the medical history interview, some things come up that will prevent people from being able to donate blood. We call it a deferral. The most common reason people are deferred from donating is, hemoglobin for women especially. We have a requirement of twelve point five grams of hemoglobin for each whole blood donor. The reason being, is when you donate blood your hemoglobin drops a couple points. And, we want to make sure that when your all done you feel well and you don't have a reaction or anything like that. The next set of deferrals that are really common, is travel deferrals. And, if you travel to an area that is endemic for malaria you're going to be deferred for one year from the day you return to the United States or the day you actually leave that endemic area. Some common places people go that have a malaria risk are: South America, Mexico, India and Asia. The reason we are strict on that, is that because malaria has no blood test. You cannot test blood to find malaria. And, with the new strings of malaria if a unit that was infected with malaria went through and went into a patient it would potentially kill that patient or cause a lot of harm. So, we want to make sure one year from the day you come back to eliminate any chance of anyone transmitting malaria. The other disease that we're worried about that have to do with travel, is mad cow disease or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. So, with this one it's actually a very strict rule. If you have lived in the United Kingdom for a cumulative time of three months or more from nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety-six, you are permanently deferred from donating. And, this again is because there is no reliable test for mad cow disease. So, we can never tell if a unit was infected or not. And, along with that all European countries if you have lived there for five years a total of five years or more from nineteen eighty to the present. You will be eliminated from donating. Unfortunately, along with the mad cows disease if you have served military time and you resided in a military base in some European countries you'll also be deferred from donating.

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