Blood bank officials in the United States are sounding an alarm because they are facing hundreds of lawsuits from people stricken with AIDS after receiving transfusions.
Issue of Screening Test
The suits generally involve transfusions received before mid-1985, when blood banks started using a screening test that detects antibodies to the AIDS virus in the blood. The central legal issue involves negligence: before the screening test was entirely in place, were the blood banks negligent in their efforts to keep the virus out of the blood supply?
The blood banks. . . say the AIDS threat was not fully understood immediately and it was not always clear that the tests would be reliable. Moreover, they say it was often impractical to move more rapidly.
While the test has made the nation's blood supply much safer, Federal experts at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta estimate that 12,000 people now living in the United States have been infected with the AIDS virus in blood transfusions. Of these, 2,170 adults and 177 children have developed AIDS so far.
