Recommendation for ME/CFS & Blood Donation By AABB

The AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banking) released a bulletin on June 18th that blood collectors actively discourage potential donors who have been diagnosed with CFS or M.E. by a physician from donating blood through the use of donor information materials made available at the donation site.

According to the CFIDS Association Grassroots Action Center:

In a bulletin released today (http://www.aabb.org/pressroom/Pages/cfsrecommendation.aspx), June 18, 2010, to its member blood collection centers, the AABB recommends that blood collecting organizations make educational information available regarding the reasons why an individual diagnosed with CFS should not donate blood or blood components. The educational materials include a poster and handout for potential donors that requests that individuals diagnosed with CFS by their physician not donate blood.

These interim recommendations are made in response to the October 2009 publication of a paper in the journal Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1179052) that discovered xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) (http://www.cfids.org/xmrv/default.asp), a retrovirus previously linked to prostate cancer, in 67 percent of 101 CFS patients and four percent of 218 healthy controls. The findings raised concerns about a possible role for XMRV in CFS. Several other infectious agents have been investigated in CFS, but no single causative agent has been identified.

While subsequent studies conducted in Europe have failed to detect XMRV in the blood of CFS patients, efforts to duplicate the findings of the original Science study and to develop reliable assays to detect XMRV are underway at several institutions in the United States and other countries.

If you liked this article, please share.
000