Blood Transfusion

NEW YORK -- Gregory Scarpa Sr. lived by the blood oath of the Mafia. Now gangster blood is slowly killing him. Mr. Scarpa, a reputed Colombo crime family big shot who dodged bullets for years, was hit by a deadly foe -- the AIDS virus -- after getting a blood transfusion from a member of his crime crew.The transfusion occurred when Mr. Scarpa was hospitalized for an emergency hiatal hernia operation in 1986.Sources familiar with a Brooklyn civil lawsuit said Mr. Scarpa, known for his swagger and elegant suits decades before John Gotti, contracted the virus after he and his family rejected screened blood from the hospital blood bank in favor of blood from friends and relatives.

About 25 years ago, when I was a Republican, there were many responsible Republicans in Maryland whom I admired. This was about the time people with more extreme views were beginning to get involved in the party. They actually thought there was no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. Yet many of the responsible Republicans would say to me: "Don't worry Mel, we only give those people lip service. We need them but they have no chance of directing policy.

Ryan Thomas, a 10-year-old boy with AIDS who won a federal court battle to stay in class after he was kicked out of kindergarten, died Thursday in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Ryan was infected with the AIDS virus through a blood transfusion he received shortly after his premature birth.

When Alan Shackelford's ankles would swell up, he brushed it off as another sign of getting older — only to find out it was a symptom of something much worse. The 59-year-old Windsor Mill man was shocked when his doctor recently diagnosed him with hepatitis C. Even more disturbing to the IT specialist at Johns Hopkins University was that he had probably been living with the disease for years. "I was completely freaked out that this had happened to me and I probably had this for 35 to 40 years," Shackelford said.

Dr. Marion Thomas Jenkins, 77, the Texas anesthesiologist who tried to resuscitate both President John F. Kennedy and his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, 31 years ago, died Monday at his home in Dallas of stomach cancer. He and a colleague devised a procedure that is used every day in operating rooms around the world when they found that by giving an intravenous saline solution to surgical patients with strong blood pressure and pulse, the need for a blood transfusion was reduced.

Hope, faith and maybe some embarrassment.Those are the feelings many of us might have upon learning that a high school student in a small town in Frederick County revealed that she has AIDS and that the community reacted mostly with support and compassion.Cindy Gibson last month disclosed that she contracted acquired immune deficiency syndrome through a blood transfusion several years ago. She said she could no longer handle the stress of hiding the illness. The community's response was humane and sane-minded.

Q**You recently said people with Type O blood are universal donors. Isn't it true that the use of O, Rh positive blood in an Rh negative recipient, can create problems?A**That's correct.Type O individuals are universal donors only with respect to the AB blood group antigens. Recipients of a blood transfusion, especially those who have had prior transfusions, may have produced antibodies against one or more of the many other antigens that can be present on the red cells of the transfused blood and lead to serious reactions.

Belinda Mason, the only AIDS-infected member of the National Commission on AIDS and an outspoken critic of President Bush's AIDS research policy, died yesterday in Nashville, Tenn., of AIDS-related pneumonia. She was 33. Ms. Mason became infected with the AIDS virus in 1987 while receiving a blood transfusion during the birth of her second child. She was often critical of Mr. Bush's stance on AIDS, contending the administration treated the AIDS crisis as a moral issue instead of as a public-health issue.

A woman treated last year at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center filed a malpractice claim against the hospital yesterday, saying an intern had "negligently" cut an artery in her neck while trying to establish intravenous access. According to the lawsuit, Dezirea M. Claxton of Baltimore visited Bayview's emergency department Nov. 5 and was admitted for further tests and treatment. Several days later, two physicians examined the 49-year-old in her room and said they had to place a catheter in a vein in her neck because they couldn't use those in her arms.

WHEN POPE John Paul II came to the United States he made a point of meeting and embracing a little boy named Brendan O'Rourke. Brendan O'Rourke got AIDS from a blood transfusion. The pope is not likely to face the same danger. He, like a growing number of Americans, stores his own blood. He has little faith in the safety of the public supply."So began a CBS News with Dan Rather special report this June. In August, Brendan O'Rourke died. He was 7 years old.As an infant Brendan received blood from 18 different donors, one of whom gave him AIDS.

Patients may be getting blood transfusion too often during surgery, according to a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers. The study shows wide variation in the use of transfusions, and those who receive blood fare no better, and sometimes do worse. The problem may be that doctors don't have clear guidelines about when to use the expensive and scarce resource. “Over the past five years, studies have supported giving less blood than we used to, and our research shows that practitioners have not caught up,” said Dr. Steven M. Frank, leader of the study published in the journal Anesthesiology . “Blood conservation is one of the few areas in medicine where outcomes can be improved, risk reduced and costs saved all at the same time,” he said in a statement.

Those who work in public safety consider themselves part of a brotherhood. But for the purposes of organ donation, a brother in blue may not be quite family enough, as Officer Gene Cassidy is finding out. Cassidy was shot in the head 27 years ago in West Baltimore, and though he survived, he contracted Hepatitis C during a blood transfusion and now has end-stage cirrhosis. Cassidy's deteriorating condition was profiled by "The Wire" creator David Simon in a March 11 article in The Baltimore Sun, with the call put out that someone could help by donating half of their liver.

Dr. Hayden G. "Bud" Braine, an internationally known figure and pioneer in the field of blood cell transfusion and in the treatment of patients suffering from leukemia, died Saturday from complications of dementia at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Monkton resident was 67. "Bud was an outstanding oncologist and established at Hopkins one of the first hemapheresis unit programs in the country. He was a great guy, compassionate and will be missed," said Dr. Richard J. "Rick" Jones, professor and director of bone marrow transplants at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

A woman treated last year at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center filed a malpractice claim against the hospital yesterday, saying an intern had "negligently" cut an artery in her neck while trying to establish intravenous access. According to the lawsuit, Dezirea M. Claxton of Baltimore visited Bayview's emergency department Nov. 5 and was admitted for further tests and treatment. Several days later, two physicians examined the 49-year-old in her room and said they had to place a catheter in a vein in her neck because they couldn't use those in her arms.

Federal officials confirmed yesterday for the first time that West Nile can be transmitted through blood transfusions, underscoring the need for a test to screen donated blood for the potentially deadly virus. Experimental tests may be ready as early as next summer, but in the meantime, the Food and Drug Administration is urging blood banks to question donors more thoroughly and quickly remove suspected blood from their shelves. The topic of West Nile drew a large crowd yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Association of Blood Banks, being held this week in Orlando.

WE ALL KNOW how important blood donations are in saving human lives, but did you ever wonder what happens when animals need blood transfusions?Just like people, animals undergoing surgery or that are injured need blood in medical emergencies.Animals needing transfusions can only accept blood from the same species, and healthy donors are wanted to give blood for the many patients that need it.Belquest Kennels invites your pet to join the Belquest dogs that have been donating through the Eastern Blood Bank since 1995.

I WAS distressed by the Joseph Feldschuh and Doron Weber comments on the safety of the blood supply (Other Voices, Nov. 29). This type of scare tactic only revives unfounded old fears that AIDS is a major threat to recipients of blood products. Its sole purpose was to frighten people into irrational behavior.Isn't it ironic that Feldschuh directs a personal blood storage bank that is suspiciously similar to the kind he recommends we all use to freeze our own blood for later use? This fact should not be overlooked.

The Orioles lost a popular member of their family early yesterday morning when Jeff Nelson, the club's video coaching assistant since 1995, died of complications following surgery at Johns Hopkins. He was 25.Nelson helped prepare tapes the Orioles used to review their performances or to prepare for an upcoming pitcher. One of the more common sights at Camden Yards was a player huddled with Nelson in the video room outside the clubhouse checking his at-bats from the previous night's game."Jeff was the man. He had everything you needed," said catcher Lenny Webster.