[Sca-cooks] Re: Blood donors

[Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur]

> Ringer's solution for one.  I'd have to pull out the books for the others.
> I've always believed it's a waste product.  Once it's removed from the
body
> it falls into the same category are urine and feces.  When someone is
about
> to die, they harvest them for organs, why not blood?  When I worked in the
> funeral industry they NEVER did that.  When someone is dies in an accident
> or on the way to hospice why not remove blood then, they won't.

Soffya, I love you, but you are wrong on so many levels I can't begin to
explain it.

Blood cannot be "harvested" from someone who has died because as soon as
cardiac activity stops and the blood stops moving, it begins to clot -
IMMEDIATELY. Blood can be collected from living donors because
anticoagulants are present in the bag when the blood is entering, preventing
it from clotting.

> Also, I've had illnesses and childhood diseases that you've never had,
same
> with you.  If you give me your blood, I can and I know of someone who got
a
> transfusion during Crohn's and got hepatitis and chicken pox.  It's now
> shingles.  She was NEVER exposed to chicken pox until the blood
transfusion.
> She was in ICU when she got transfusion and donor had chicken pox
thingies.
> I haven't' had lunch yet so my brain isn't functioning.

Yes, there are certain blood-borne diseases which can occasionally be
transmitted by transfusion. The blood you donate is tested for all of these
diseases, including HIV, hepatitis B and C, and any unit which tests
positive is thrown away. Nevertheless, the rare contaminated unit gets
through. For what it's worth, almost EVERYONE has been exposed to
varicella-zoster virus (the chicken pox/shingles virus), but anyone who
hasn't is routinely warned to avoid accepting transfusions unless they have
been (a) vaccinated or (b) need to be transfused on a life-saving basis.

The risk of transfusion-related infection is so low (estimated at 1
infection of SOMETHING per 400,000 units of blood transfused), and the
number of lives saved so high, that the risk is considered more than
acceptable.

> Kinda like when you breast feed, child has ALL your immunities from
anything
> you've every had or been vaccinated for.  Same with blood.

Not true. Not all antibodies are passed into breast milk; some types are too
large. In the case of transfusion, most patients today do not receive whole
blood, but rather separated, packed red blood cells. These cells are
antibody-free, since they have been washed clean of plasma. (Yes, patients
who are transfused fresh frozen plasma are receiving antibodies, but see
further on...) Further, the amount of blood transfused in the average case
is so much smaller than the total body blood volume that the amount of
antibody introduced is insignificant.

Avraham

*******************************************************
Reb Avraham haRofeh of Sudentur
     (mka Randy Goldberg MD)
RandomTag: Backup not found. Want a gun or sleeping pills?