Discussion

Abstract

D. Goldfinger: We heard over and over again, that blood transfusion is safe. We keep hearing this as though as we keep saying it, it is really to become true. It cannot be stated this way. In the future when we find ways of inactivating viruses in cellular components then perhaps we can make this statement, but today we cannot. We said it was safe in the eighties, because we were making great headway with the control of transfusion associated hepatitis. But along came a disease we had never heard of, or never even imagined. Today while testing for many diseases we can only say that perhaps it is safer. However, since we have a one out of 4000 chances to get HIV, even this is debatable. We certainly cannot say that it is safe regarding diseases that we have never heard of, or that we have heard of but do not know of being transmitted by blood transfusion.