FEATURE
Features
Blood Donation
Separating Myth From Fact
A
fter natural disasters and other tragic
events, many people try to help by rush-
ing to the nearest blood donation center.
While there’s no denying that many of
the victims of tragedies require blood transfusions,
the well-intentioned donors aren’t directly helping
those people.
“[Public tragedies] raise a lot of awareness
about donating after the event, but obviously it
was the people who donated in the days before the
event whose blood was actually used for victims,”
explained Steve Bolton, executive director of the
Association of Donor Recruitment Profession-
als, the educational division of America’s Blood
Centers (ABC).
Blood banks can’t survive on what Mr. Bolton
called “disaster donations,” which can lead to un-
even donation patterns. What’s needed is a stable
supply, and that comes with a steady flow of dona-
tions over time.
ASHClinicalNews.org
The viability of blood banks is further challenged
by restrictions on eligible donors in the U.S. and
blood-banking policies that affect the quality and
safety of the nation’s blood supply. ASH Clinical
News looked at the history of the blood-banking
system and dissected some common blood donation
myths and misconceptions.
Blood Bank Backstory
Modern blood banking started with man’s best friend:
In the late 1600s, Richard Lower, MD, of Oxford,
England, performed the first dog-to-dog blood trans-
fusion. 1 Over the next several centuries, scientists
made gradual discoveries in transfusion medicine:
In 1818, British obstetrician James Blundell, MD,
performed the first successful transfusion of human
blood to a patient for the treatment of postpartum
hemorrhage. 2 Less than a century later, in 1915,
researchers showed that blood treated with a sodium
citrate and dextrose solution (an anticoagulant) could
be refrigerated and stored for two weeks.
Then, in 1918, Oswald Robertson, MD, a
physician with the U.S. Army Medical Corps dur-
ing World War I, became the first physician to use
stored blood for human transfusion. 2 This discov-
ery allowed for the establishment of blood depots
in Britain, and, though Dr. Robertson has been
credited as the developer of the first blood bank,
the London Blood Transfusion Service, founded by
Percy Oliver in 1921, is recognized as the world’s
first blood storage center. Cook County Hospital in
Chicago holds the distinction of being the first such
center in the U.S., opened in 1936. 2
Eventually, the term “blood bank” took hold
globally. The American Association of Blood Banks
was founded in 1947 to set blood bank quality-
control standards. The following year, the American
Red Cross began operating a full-scale blood bank
program to collect and distribute blood for medical
purposes.
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