Transfusions

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.

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.

Two scientists whose work helped virtually eliminate the risk of transmitting hepatitis viruses through blood transfusions were among six winners of this year's Albert Lasker medical research awards being announced today. The two are Dr. Harvey Alter of the National Institutes of Health and Dr. Michael Houghton of the Chiron Corp. in Emeryville, Calif. Alter leads a project that NIH created many years ago to discover the causes of hepatitis that followed transfusions. Houghton led a team that discovered the hepatitis C virus in 1989.

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.

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.

Sunny sat down and made himself comfortable, preparing to donate blood. A technician talked to him as he was sanitized with surgery soap and alcohol, and Sunny barely winced when the needle entered his vein. The procedure was relatively routine except for one thing: Sunny is a dog. The Eastern Veterinary Blood Bank held a canine blood drive yesterday at the Airpark Animal Hospital in Westminster. Veterinarians from the blood bank travel around the Mid-Atlantic region four days a week to collect blood from dogs, which have 13 blood types.

TOKYO -- Advances in medical treatment for radiation victims give hope that one or more of the three workers severely irradiated last week in Japan's worst civilian nuclear disaster could survive, doctors said yesterday.Two of the men received more than lethal doses of radiation Thursday in being bombarded with neutrons during an uncontrolled nuclear fission reaction at a uranium processing plant. They remained critically ill yesterday.But their condition was stable enough that doctors announced plans to give them both transfusions of bone marrow cells using new, noninvasive techniques pioneered on cancer patients.

Colorado researchers have used genetic engineering to produce a form of artificial blood, representing a significant step in the search for a solution to the worldwide shortage of blood.Researchers from Somatogen in Boulder report today in the British journal Nature that they have begun human trials with the blood, which is produced in bacteria.The artificial blood is a genetically engineered form of hemoglobin, the complicated protein that -- enclosed in red blood cells -- carries oxygen from the lungs to tissues throughout the body.

A record-setting 61 pints of blood were collected in early September at a blood drive held in downtown Annapolis at the request of an Anne Arundel County sheriff's deputy. The drive, at the Anne Arundel Medical Center Bloodmobile, collected blood from donors who work at the Anne Arundel County Court House and who live and work in the community. It was held at the request of a deputy - the Sheriff's Office is in the courthouse - who had received many transfusions for cancer treatment. He wanted to help replenish the blood supply in the area and others wanted to act in his behalf, according to the Sheriff's Office.

The supply of certain types of blood at Carroll County General Hospital has dropped to dangerously low levels in the past several weeks because of a regionwide decline in donors, said the hospital's blood bank supervisor.The hospital normally receives blood deliveries from the Central Maryland chapter of the American Red Cross on Tuesdaysand Fridays, said Gertrude Redding.But for the past two weeks, CCGH has received partial orders or no deliveries, she said.The shortage creates a risk for emergency patients who have lost blood in accidents and others who need transfusions, said Redding, who characterized the problem as "serious."

A record-setting 61 pints of blood were collected in early September at a blood drive held in downtown Annapolis at the request of an Anne Arundel County sheriff's deputy. The drive, at the Anne Arundel Medical Center Bloodmobile, collected blood from donors who work at the Anne Arundel County Court House and who live and work in the community. It was held at the request of a deputy - the Sheriff's Office is in the courthouse - who had received many transfusions for cancer treatment. He wanted to help replenish the blood supply in the area and others wanted to act in his behalf, according to the Sheriff's Office.

The Johns Hopkins Hospital and a handful of other medical centers around the country are set this week to begin collectively monitoring and tracking dangerous reactions to blood transfusions, the first piece of a nationwide "biovigilance" program that is arriving in the United States years later than in most other developed nations. The ultimate goal of the project, a collaboration between federal agencies and private medical associations, is to reduce the number of infections, allergic reactions, clerical errors and other complications related to blood transfusions.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Pfc. Caleb A. Lufkin landed on the helipad at about 12:30 p.m., screaming at the sky as a small all-terrain vehicle carried him past the palm trees and concrete bunkers to the emergency room. Doctors inside cut off his blood-covered boots and prepared to sedate him and insert a breathing tube, and he pleaded with them to keep him alive. "Don't let me die," he said. "I won't let you die," answered Capt. David Steinbruner, an Army doctor. "I promise. I give you my word."

The holiday tradition of second chances played out Baltimore-style yesterday as Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, who earlier this year called AIDS patients "a danger," saying those with the disease "brought it on themselves," helped deliver meals to homebound HIV-positive people. Schaefer set off a critical firestorm after he made the comments in October while explaining why he advocated establishing a public registry of Marylanders with HIV. The cantankerous politician, whose impolitic comments land him in hot water from time to time, had tripped the public outcry trigger just a few months earlier by complaining about a McDonald's restaurant employee's English skills.

Sunny sat down and made himself comfortable, preparing to donate blood. A technician talked to him as he was sanitized with surgery soap and alcohol, and Sunny barely winced when the needle entered his vein. The procedure was relatively routine except for one thing: Sunny is a dog. The Eastern Veterinary Blood Bank held a canine blood drive yesterday at the Airpark Animal Hospital in Westminster. Veterinarians from the blood bank travel around the Mid-Atlantic region four days a week to collect blood from dogs, which have 13 blood types.

Cases of West Nile disease jumped by more than one-third over the past seven days, and two people have developed encephalitis after receiving transfusions tainted with the virus, federal health officials said yesterday. Infections rose from 2,878 a week ago to 4,137 as of yesterday. The drastic increase of 1,259 cases in a week is in keeping with predictions by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that this year's West Nile season would probably break last year's record. With a few weeks remaining in the season, there are 19 fewer cases than the 4,156 recorded for all of last year.

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration is pondering a new, stricter test to screen blood donations for the AIDS virus but will likely decide against it because it costs too much.The test, scientists say, would prevent up to 20 transfusions of HIV-infected blood a year but would come at a cost of at least $24 million."While I sympathize, I don't think that's an issue," said Louis M. Katz, chairman of an FDA advisory panel that ruled against the test after a controversial debate. "It's inconceivable in 1995 that we would consider a test that would cost so much."

BERLIN -- A scandal of AIDS-tainted blood products that has panicked millions of Germans has awakened European health officials to even greater blood-supply hazards in Eastern Europe.Partly for that reason, and partly in response to the German panic, the 27-nation European Council is organizing a summit next month of national health ministers and AIDS experts in hopes of setting new standards for handling blood and blood products."We're working at this very moment to try and address this issue in order to avoid something like this happening again," said Dr. Jean Emmanuel, a blood-supply expert with the World Health Organization in Geneva.

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.