Saturday, August 28, 2010

ME/CFS and the blood supply

With evidence of a link between ME/CFS and a family of retroviruses, there's been talk of potential contamination to the blood supply. 7 percent of the healthy controls in the recent Alter study tested positive for an MLV (murine leukemia virus). All of them were blood donors.

Remember why this kind of thing is a big deal?

Anyway, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK have already banned ME/CFS patients from donating blood (though the UK is saying it's to protect the health of the donors). The United States hasn't followed suit, at least not yet. From the Associated Press:
No one knows how people become infected, but Alter said a major study is under way to see if there's any evidence of transmission through blood.

In the meantime, federal regulations require that blood donors be in good health, said FDA's Dr. Hira Nakhasi.
So apparently we aren't worried about those healthy donors who have MLVs yet.

2 comments:

DeppityBob said...

And when they find out the tainted blood supply is growing, the nation will shrug because, hey, it's only CFS, and everyone's a little tired, aren't they?

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