Article: New Threats to U.S. Blood Supply

[Lesley]

From an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday:

"We learned from HIV that we have to react aggressively to every next potential threat," says Michael Busch, director of the Blood Systems Research Institute in San Francisco and a member of a federally funded group studying whether the retrovirus XMRV, which has been linked to chronic fatigue syndrome, poses a threat to the blood supply.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704792104575264600619273586.html?mod=rss_Health

The article talks about various threats to the blood supply, methods of screening blood, pathogen-reduction technology, and screening of potential donors.

 

[Gemini]

Lesley,

Thanks for the posting and link.

Very good that the WSJ is keeping the critical XMRV blood supply issue and ME/CFS in the news.

Gemini

 

[alphahusky]

Even so, I keep getting the feeling that the name "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" doesn't help much. "Oh, so I get some blood that makes me tired sometimes and I get to stay home from work." It just doesn't seem to do justice to what having the disease really is (of course), or why it really matters it stay out of the blood supply.

 

[Sunday]

My acupuncturist/MD uses the term CFIDS: Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome. I'm working on switching to that; it may not be ideal, but it's a heck of a lot more descriptive.