Blood-Vital for Your LIfe! -THE AIDS PANDEMIC

AIDS has changed forever the way doctors and patients think about blood. And that's no a bad idea, said the doctors gathered at the National Institutes of Health for a conference on blood transfusion." -Washington Post, July 5, 1988.

The AIDS  (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) pandemic has, with a vengeance, awakened people to the danger of acquiring infectious diseases from blood.  Millions are now infected. It is spreading out of control. And its death rate is virtually 100 percent. 

AIDS is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which can spread by blood.  The modern plague of AIDS came to light in 1981.  The very next year, health experts learned that virus could probably be passed on in blood products. It is now admitted that the blood industry was slow to respond, even after tests were available to identify blood containing HIV antibodies.  Testing of donor blood finally began in 1985, but even then it was not applied to blood products that were already on the shelf. 

Thereafter, the public was assured, 'The blood supply is safe.' Later, however, it was revealed that there is a dangerous "window period" for AIDS.  After a person is infected, it could be months before he produces detectable antibodies. Unaware that he harbors the virus, he might donate blood that would test negative.  This has happened. People have developed AIDS after being transfused with such blood!

The picture got even grimmer. The New England Journal of Medicine (June 1, 1989) reported on "Silent HIV Infections."  It was established that people can carry the AIDS virus for years without its being detectable by current indirect tests.  Some would like to minimize these as rare cases, but they prove "that the risk of AIDS transmission via blood and its components cannot be totally eliminated." (Patient Care, November 30, 1989)  The disturbing conclusion: A negative test cannot be read as a clean bill of health. How many will yet get AIDS from blood? 

Next time: Blood-Vital for Life! - THE NEXT SHOE? OR SHOES?

From the jw.org publications