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EVALUATING EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES (EIDs) FOR TRANSFUSION SAFETY: TRANSCRIPTS

Messages
13,774
Some quotes from the meeting, which was attended by:

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Thanks for that.

I'd have never dug through that myself. Interesting.

It sounds like their decision not to ban CFS donors is based on the difficulty of identifying CFS patients with a simple question, and the fact that those with CFS would only seem to make up a small portion of those with XMRV (if the 4% figure's right anyway). Interesting to read their thoughts.
 

ixchelkali

Senior Member
Messages
1,107
Location
Long Beach, CA
I don’t know, when I read this transcript a few days ago, I had a different impression. I was heartened. My feeling, especially about Dr Dodd’s (Roger Dodd, the Red Cross guy) presentation, was that they are taking XMRV seriously. I thought that basically he was saying, the research isn’t there yet, but we need to pay attention to this.

I thought the way Dr Dodd described the decision-making process was interesting, especially that public perception is almost –but not quite—on a par with scientific data. Although I’m not convinced that that’s a good thing, it lets us know that keeping public attention on XMRV works. Look at what he said about babesiosis, that it is known to be transmissible by transfusion, can be serious and even fatal, has a seroprevalance of 1-2% in blood donors, but they’ve only received one query about it in 3 years.

Another interesting thing he said about babesiosis that has implications for XMRV is that there has been a donor criterion in place for many years, but the evidence is that it has had NO demonstrable value in ameliorating Babesia transmission by transfusion.

Dr Dodd said, “There's a lot of information that we really need, to be in a position to think seriously about this agent,” and went on to mention a “gold standard” test, prevalence, incidence, risk factors, transmissibility, disease causation. Those are the same things that we want to know. So I find it encouraging that they are asking these questions. I think they’re saying we need data; we need good research. And I think so, too.

It’s hard to be patient when you’re a patient.
 

Sam Carter

Guest
Messages
435
from: http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20100518-903557.html#printMode

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Virus Linked to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Prostate Cancer is Viewed as a Blood Transfusion Risk

CONCORD, Calif. & RENO, Nev.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 18, 2010--

The Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease (WPI) and Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) announced positive results from a study demonstrating the efficacy of the INTERCEPT Blood System to inactivate XMRV, a human retrovirus, in donated platelet components. After sample platelet components were inoculated with XMRV, the infected blood components were treated with INTERCEPT, a system that inactivates pathogens in donated blood. Following treatment, no evidence of infectious XMRV was detected in blood samples. The study results have been submitted for presentation at the AABB Annual Meeting in October.

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