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.

Arthur Ashe, a pioneering black man in professional tennis and an eloquent activist in issues of race and sports, said yesterday that he has AIDS."I have AIDS," he said. "I am sorry that I have been forced to make this revelation now, at this time."In a news conference yesterday in New York City, Mr. Ashe, 48, said he and his doctors are "95 percent certain" that he contracted HIV during a blood transfusion after a second coronary bypass operation in 1983. He was not aware of his condition until a brain biopsy in September 1988 revealed that he had acquired immune deficiency syndrome, he said.

A Navy lieutenant and his wife have charged that their 8-year-old son contracted the AIDS virus during a series of transfusions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and that doctors failed to inform them of his condition for three years.In a suit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, the Virginia couple alleges that their son, then an infant, was infected with the virus, HIV, that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome during several transfusions in a cooperative arrangement between Walter Reed in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda between 1983 and 1984.

Imagine if there were a good substitute for human blood -- something that would carry life-giving oxygen through the body.An ambulance crew could administer it in emergencies -- something that cannot be done now because the patient's blood must first be typed and cross-matched.A surgery candidate could avoid the ever-present risk of catching acquired immune deficiency syndrome or hepatitis through a blood transfusion.Imagine the benefits for society -- and the profits for the manufacturer and its shareholders.

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.

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.

Facing an operation at St. Joseph Hospital last August, an 85-year-old Pikesville woman was told by her surgeon to make two visits to the hospital ahead of time, to bank a couple of units, or pints, of her own blood, which would be returned to her after surgery.She had not given blood in years, not since World War II, in fact, and she was nervous. But in the age of AIDS, she said, she understood "that my own blood was the safest kind."Experts will tell you that the U.S. blood supply is safer than ever, that careful screening of potential donors weeds out most of those who might be infectious, that new testing techniques enable blood banks to find and eliminate units that carry microbes of deadly disease, that allegations to the contrary undermine efforts to maintain an adequate supply of blood donated by healthy volunteers.

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.

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.

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.