Canada lifts ban on blood donors with Creutzfeldt- disease THE LANCET, January 9, 1999

[Guest guest]

Also FYI - Cheers, Lynette.

****************************

THE LANCET, Volume 353, Number 9147 9 January 1999

Canada lifts ban on blood donors with Creutzfeldt- disease

Saying that there is no scientific evidence that " classic "

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is bloodborne,

the Canadian government has lifted a 4-year policy obligating the

quarantine of blood products

made from plasma donated by people with CJD.

After ordering a mid-December quarantine of thousands of vials of

fractionated blood products

made from plasma donated by a Utah man who was thought to have had variant

CJD, Health

Canada's Bureau of Biologics late last month freed Canada's blood agencies

to use albumin,

immunoglobulins, and factor VIII made from the man's plasma, after it was

determined the

29-year-old had had classic CJD. He had donated blood over 100 times in the

past 2 years,

including some after he had begun to show signs of CJD.

" In this case, we are absolutely sure that this is a case of classical CJD,

and the expert advice

that we have received in the past several months is that there is no

evidence whatsoever that

there has been any transmission or is any transmission of classical CJD

through blood or blood

products " , Bureau of Biologics director told reporters. " Our

assurance would be

that to the best of our knowledge, there isn't a problem with these

products " , said.

While acknowledging that there is still a theoretical possibility that

classic CJD could be

bloodborne, Health Canada officials said the preponderance of the evidence

suggests it is not,

so there is little rationale for maintaining the bureau's quarantine

policy, which was introduced in

1995.

The new policy mirrors that of the USA and only obligates the withdrawal of

plasma from

donors with variant CJD.

Wayne Kondro