Blood Transfusions

Much recent media coverage of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) has equated blood transfusion with sexual activity and intravenous drug use in the spread of AIDS. It would relieve the anxiety of many people whose lives depend on blood products and others who anticipate elective surgery if the risk factors for AIDS were kept in proper perspective. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta reported in July that only 202 AIDS cases out of 12,067 are transfusion-related (just over 1.5%)

MADRID -- A Spanish doctor accused of masterminding one of the world's biggest sports doping rings took the stand Tuesday at his trial here, telling the court that the blood transfusions he administered to athletes were safe and legal at the time. Eufemiano Fuentes was arrested in 2006 after Spanish police raided his office, laboratory and home and seized more than 200 bags of frozen blood, labeled with what are believed to be code names for famous athletes. Investigators are working to decipher the code, amid speculation that they could bring down some of the biggest names in sports.

A hospital today stood by its decision to honor a pregnant woman's dying wish to refuse a blood transfusion on religious grounds during surgery to save her baby after a shooting in a drug neighborhood. Lysa Biffle, 26, gave birth to a healthy son by Cesarean section early Tuesday during three hours of surgery and died later in the afternoon, officials said.

Lance Armstrong reportedly is weighing confessing to using banned performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions during his run of seven Tour de France titles. Armstrong, who was stripped in October of his Tour titles and banned for life from competition by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, is pursuing the admission as a route to regain his eligibility to compete, the New York Times first reported Friday. Armstrong's attorney, Tim Herman, told the newspaper, “I suppose anything is possible.

Police arrested three of 15 Jehovah's Witnesses who surrounded the hospital bed of a church member to keep doctors from giving blood transfusions to the woman for complications after childbirth, officials said. Denise Nicoleau and her husband, Herriot, refused the transfusions on religious grounds Friday, and a Brookhaven Memorial Hospital official obtained a court order to administer them. The three arrested, including Herriot Nicoleau, were charged with second-degree criminal trespass.

Emperor Hirohito, the world's longest-reigning monarch, appeared to be improving today after three blood transfusions, but Japanese officials prepared to have his son take over his ceremonial duties and even to ready plans for the first succession to the throne in 62 years. Hirohito, 87, was given blood Monday night and Tuesday for an intestinal ailment, transfusions that replaced about one-fourth of his blood, officials of the Imperial Household Agency said.

Each year about 4 million Americans receive blood transfusions, and despite screening for hepatitis, thousands of cases of transfusion-related hepatitis occur. Until recently, blood banks have been unable to prevent the transmission of the disease, because there has been no blood test for the virus that causes it--newly discovered hepatitis C virus. In the past year, however, a test allowing the screening of blood for hepatitis C virus was approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The risk of catching the AIDS virus from a blood transfusion is just 2 in 1 million, according to a new report in the June 27 New England Journal of Medicine. "The safety of the blood supply has dramatically increased over the past decade. While there still is a risk, it is exceedingly small," said epidemiologist George B. Schreiber of Westat Inc., a research company in Rockville, Md., that figured the latest odds.

The discovery that it is safe--and sometimes better--to cut back on blood transfusions for critically ill patients may have effects far beyond the obvious ones of blood and money. It could open the way for more studies of whether common sense makes medical sense, said Dr. Gordon R. Barnard, chief of critical care service at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. Common sense would say that a normal red-cell count is better than a low one, but the work directed by Dr. Paul C.

Christina Blouvan-Cervantes had been battling aggressive leukemia when her blood count plummeted and she landed in the emergency room in Fresno. Her doctors told her a blood transfusion was her only hope. But her faith wouldn't allow her to receive one. So she turned to one of the only doctors who could possibly keep her alive: a committed atheist who views her belief system as wholly irrational. Dr. Michael Lill, head of the blood and marrow transplant program at Cedars-Sinai's Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, is a last recourse for Jehovah's Witnesses with advanced leukemia.

Like the Rolling Stones, the Marina del Rey Boat Parade also turns 50 this year, but one of these things is decidedly more wholesome and less prone to rumors of full-body blood transfusions. Volleyball superstar Kerri Walsh Jennings is the grand marshal, and the event features its usual cavalcade of well-bedecked vessels. Burton Chase Park, Marina del Rey. 6 p.m. Sat. Free. http://www.mdrboatparade.org.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Friday disqualified famed cyclist Lance Armstrong's seven Tour de France titles and imposed a lifetime competition ban “as a result of his anti-doping rules violations,” the agency announced. “Mr. Armstrong chose not to contest the fact that he engaged in doping violations from at least August 1, 1998, and participated in a conspiracy to cover up his actions,” USADA wrote in a statement. USADA said Armstrong, 40, had until midnight Thursday to contest evidence against him in an arbitration hearing.

Attorneys for Lance Armstrong refiled on Tuesday a lawsuit seeking to stop the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency from stripping the cyclist of his seven Tour de France titles. A day after U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks in Austin, Texas, dismissed Armstrong's Monday lawsuit, and called it an attempt to seek publicity, Armstrong's attorneys shortened the filing by more than 80 pages. The lawsuit still seeks an injunction to stop the agency from demanding that Armstrong either accept the loss of his titles or request an arbitration hearing by Saturday.

There are new doping charges against seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong , but do you believe them? On Wednesday, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency brought formal doping charges against him that could result in him being stripped of his Tour de France titles. USADA says it collected bloodfrom Armstrong in 2009 and 2010 that was "fully consistent with blood ma­nipu­la­tion including EPO use and/or blood transfusions. " Armstrong responded by saying, "I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one. That USADA ignores this fundamental distinction and charges me instead of the admitted dopers says far more about USADA, its lack of fairness and this vendetta than it does about my guilt or innocence.

Lance Armstrong could be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and is banned from competing as a triathlete as a result of new doping charges brought against him by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. A 15-page USADA charging letter first obtained by the Washington Post made new allegations against Armstrong, contending the agency collected 2009 and 2010 blood samples from Armstrong identified as "fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions.

Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is back in the spotlight after the Washington Post reported Wednesday that the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has brought formal doping charges against him that could result in him being stripped of his Tour de France titles. Armstrong has also been immediately banned from competing in triathlons, a sport he recently took up professionally. In the 15-page charging letter obtained by the Post , USADA says it collected blood from Armstrong in 2009 and 2010 that was "fully consistent with blood ma­nipu­la­tion including EPO use and/or blood transfusions.

Federal health officials are investigating whether West Nile virus is transmitted via blood transfusions, citing four cases in which patients were diagnosed within weeks after receiving blood from the general supply. One of the West Nile patients received blood from three donors whose blood contained genetic evidence of the virus, officials said. All three may have had the infection when they donated.

Fear of catching AIDS from blood of unknown donors is driving thousands of people across the United States to store their own blood for use in elective surgery. Doctors, hospital officials and directors of some of the biggest blood banks in the country say the number of autologous donors--people who donate for their own use--has more than doubled in the last five years and is growing steadily as people realize that their own blood is the best they can get.

Re "Hepatitis a new worry for baby boomers," May 2 In the late 1960s I was a Peace Corps volunteer teaching school in Uganda. I became ill and required blood transfusions. Fast forward 30 years and I'm donating my own blood for surgery. Imagine my surprise when the Red Cross informed me that I had hepatitis C, something I had never heard of. I had contracted it from those long-ago transfusions. Once my initial panic subsided, I was fortunate to find an excellent heptologist who eventually persuaded me to undergo treatment.

Christina Blouvan-Cervantes had been battling aggressive leukemia when her blood count plummeted and she landed in the emergency room in Fresno. Her doctors told her a blood transfusion was her only hope. But her faith wouldn't allow her to receive one. So she turned to one of the only doctors who could possibly keep her alive: a committed atheist who views her belief system as wholly irrational. Dr. Michael Lill, head of the blood and marrow transplant program at Cedars-Sinai's Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, is a last recourse for Jehovah's Witnesses with advanced leukemia.