The US Food and Drug Administration, which treats blood as a product, bars
blood donations from people who have spent more than three months in Great Britain since 1985, or more than six months in any part of Western Europe. All this on the basis of variant Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease (vCJD), which no one has yet established as being
transmissible by blood.
We have a huge shortage of donated blood in this country, in part because we don't accept blood from homosexuals. But we're not making sensible distinctions here: although
male homosexuals are at higher risk of carrying HIV or Hepatitis B than the general public,
female homosexuals are at
lower risk.
And the point isn't
travel in Europe; it's
eating meat in Europe. An English vegetarian is less likely to acquire vCJD than a Texas carnivore.
And we're not sure that we
don't have BSE (or vCJD) here in the States; only that we haven't looked as hard as the Europeans have. But we have lots of stuff like it: Elk Wasting Disease, which is infesting American herds of wildlife (and threatening hunters who eat their kill), and a similar syndrome among squirrels (careful with that
Brunswick stew!).
Besides, where are the Europeans going to get
their blood from? China?
Just thinking about this today because I'm scheduled to give blood at 10:15, and I just spent another three weeks in Italy. I'm getting pretty close to the six-month ceiling, though I probably won't hit it before I get my ten-gallon pin...
The ONE single case was discovered May 20, and all trade was shut down.
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