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American Morning

Paging Dr. Gupta: Blood Safety

Aired July 01, 2003 - 08:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: New diseases like SARS, monkeypox and the West Nile Virus could threaten the nation's blood supply.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from CNN Center with details.

Sanjay, we're talking about all of this as we approach the Fourth of July weekend, and holiday weekends always a tough time for blood banks around the country anyway.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Renay.

And I'm not so sure about monkeypox, but certainly, there are the other diseases out there which may threaten the blood supply as well. You're absolutely right about the holiday season. People are going to the beaches, going to the mountains, so not available as donors. Then you get a lot more holiday accidents, and all of a sudden, you could possibly run into a troubling situation with regard to the supply of blood.

Now, we talked to the American Red Cross yesterday about the situation right now. In an optimal situation, what they would ideally like to have is 175,000 units of blood on standby. What they have now, about 67,000. So you can see the numbers actually less than half right now. It would take about 45,000 people donating blood every day in order to make those numbers, by the way, and only about 5 percent of eligible donors actually donate. That's a little message out there as well.

Renay, you mentioned new diseases. There are certainly new diseases that have affected the blood supply as well. What typically happens, If you go to donate blood, you'll be asked a series of questions. And when you get asked these series of questions, Sometimes it may lead to a deferral, meaning that they'll say you can't donate blood now, you're going to have to come back later. We're starting to see that with SARS, where they say you cannot donate if you've had any symptoms for about 14 days after, and you can't donate until 28 days after if you've actually been treated for SARS.

And also, with West Nile Virus, where they also have these deferral periods.

But there's new news today, Renay, they're actually going to start testing blood now for West Nile Virus. They actually have a test to test the blood, it will be part of their routine standard testing, to actually test blood for this disease. And of course, if West Nile virus is present, it will be discarded. They found out last year that last year that West Nile Virus could in fact be transmitted through the blood.

Of course the testing process for blood is long and arduous one. There are several diseases that they test for, for the various diseases they transmit through the blood. They've known about these for quite some time. HIV, obviously, hepatitis, syphilis, something called the leukemia virus. All these things being tested for, in addition to a long questionnaire.

So not easy to donate blood, Renay, but certainly important. It is changing a little bit, as diseases become more present.

SAN MIGUEL: They are. And also, you know, the FDA regulations are stirring some -- about blood are stirring some controversy as well, including one concerning whether or not mad cow disease can be spread through the blood.

GUPTA: Yes, you know, this is one of those situations, where on one hand, you have the safety of blood, on the other hand you have enough blood.

And sometimes, those two things don't actually sort of jive. Everybody, obviously, wants safe blood, but they want enough, and then sometimes it's hard to get both.

With regard to mad cow, it's never really been proven that the agent which causes mad cow can actually be transmitted through the blood. However, because of the risk of this particular thing, and the theoretical possibility that it might, there's a series of questionnaires, and I don't have all the questions here, but questions like, have you ever lived in Europe from 1980 to 1996? Did you live there for three months? Have you ever been in such and such country for this period? Obviously, once you start excluding all the people that have done any of these things, you start really bringing down your potential donor list, and that's why it's a bit controversial -- Renay.

SAN MIGUEL. Sanjay Gupta, live in Atlanta. Thanks so much, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Good to see you.

SAN MIGUEL: Good to see you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired July 1, 2003 - 08:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: New diseases like SARS, monkeypox and the West Nile Virus could threaten the nation's blood supply.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us from CNN Center with details.

Sanjay, we're talking about all of this as we approach the Fourth of July weekend, and holiday weekends always a tough time for blood banks around the country anyway.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Renay.

And I'm not so sure about monkeypox, but certainly, there are the other diseases out there which may threaten the blood supply as well. You're absolutely right about the holiday season. People are going to the beaches, going to the mountains, so not available as donors. Then you get a lot more holiday accidents, and all of a sudden, you could possibly run into a troubling situation with regard to the supply of blood.

Now, we talked to the American Red Cross yesterday about the situation right now. In an optimal situation, what they would ideally like to have is 175,000 units of blood on standby. What they have now, about 67,000. So you can see the numbers actually less than half right now. It would take about 45,000 people donating blood every day in order to make those numbers, by the way, and only about 5 percent of eligible donors actually donate. That's a little message out there as well.

Renay, you mentioned new diseases. There are certainly new diseases that have affected the blood supply as well. What typically happens, If you go to donate blood, you'll be asked a series of questions. And when you get asked these series of questions, Sometimes it may lead to a deferral, meaning that they'll say you can't donate blood now, you're going to have to come back later. We're starting to see that with SARS, where they say you cannot donate if you've had any symptoms for about 14 days after, and you can't donate until 28 days after if you've actually been treated for SARS.

And also, with West Nile Virus, where they also have these deferral periods.

But there's new news today, Renay, they're actually going to start testing blood now for West Nile Virus. They actually have a test to test the blood, it will be part of their routine standard testing, to actually test blood for this disease. And of course, if West Nile virus is present, it will be discarded. They found out last year that last year that West Nile Virus could in fact be transmitted through the blood.

Of course the testing process for blood is long and arduous one. There are several diseases that they test for, for the various diseases they transmit through the blood. They've known about these for quite some time. HIV, obviously, hepatitis, syphilis, something called the leukemia virus. All these things being tested for, in addition to a long questionnaire.

So not easy to donate blood, Renay, but certainly important. It is changing a little bit, as diseases become more present.

SAN MIGUEL: They are. And also, you know, the FDA regulations are stirring some -- about blood are stirring some controversy as well, including one concerning whether or not mad cow disease can be spread through the blood.

GUPTA: Yes, you know, this is one of those situations, where on one hand, you have the safety of blood, on the other hand you have enough blood.

And sometimes, those two things don't actually sort of jive. Everybody, obviously, wants safe blood, but they want enough, and then sometimes it's hard to get both.

With regard to mad cow, it's never really been proven that the agent which causes mad cow can actually be transmitted through the blood. However, because of the risk of this particular thing, and the theoretical possibility that it might, there's a series of questionnaires, and I don't have all the questions here, but questions like, have you ever lived in Europe from 1980 to 1996? Did you live there for three months? Have you ever been in such and such country for this period? Obviously, once you start excluding all the people that have done any of these things, you start really bringing down your potential donor list, and that's why it's a bit controversial -- Renay.

SAN MIGUEL. Sanjay Gupta, live in Atlanta. Thanks so much, Sanjay.

GUPTA: Good to see you.

SAN MIGUEL: Good to see you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com