Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has welcomed the news that\nthe Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) have lifted the ban on people who\nwere resident in the North and Britain during the vCJD, or \u2018Mad cow disease\u2019\ncrisis, donating blood in this State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sinn F\u00e9in TD has called on the IBTS to also adopt a more\nflexible approach to citizens who have hemochromatosis. He also reiterated the\ncall for more people to come forward and give blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is no doubt that in order to protect the high standard of the State\u2019s blood supply and following the scandalous approach in the past where people were given contaminated blood products, the IBTS has to adhere to the strictest of scientific guidelines. <\/p>
\u201cThe move from the IBTS to lift this ban follows a special meeting of its medical advisory committee where it was agreed that the predicted number of vCJD cases had been lower than anticipated.<\/p>
\u201cGiven the passage of time since the vCJD outbreak, also known as the \u2018mad cow disease\u2019 crisis, and the demonstrable need for additional blood donations, this issue clearly warranted a new approach<\/p>
\u201cI welcome the news that the board of the IBTS have subsequently decided to lift this ban on people from the North or those who lived in Britain between the years of 1980 and 1996 giving blood. This decision will undoubtedly have a positive impact on the availability of blood and is a shot in the arm for the supply chain.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis decision will hopefully open doors to more people who may have been keen to donate blood and help save lives but were unable to do just that due to the ban.\u00a0This ground-breaking decision needs to be followed up with a new more enlightened approach to the giving of blood. <\/p>
\u201cThe IBTS should also adopt a more flexible approach to citizens who have hemochromatosis, a blood disorder that causes irregularly high levels of iron in the blood. This blood is perfectly safe but unlike other jurisdictions, it is not used in Ireland and is discarded.<\/p>
\u201cConsidering the prevalence of hemochromatosis in our population our current approach needs consideration and action.<\/p>
\u201cI am not calling for a return of light regulation but for a more enlightened scientific approach to be adopted when it comes to blood donation.<\/p>
\u201cLastly I would like to join the call for more people to come forward and give blood. Every year thousands of patients require blood transfusions in our hospitals, because they are undergoing surgery, recovering from cancer or have been in a serious accident.\u00a03,000 blood donors are needed each week in Ireland. The demand never ends and it only it takes minutes to help save a life.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has welcomed the news that the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) have lifted the ban on people who were resident in the North and Britain during the vCJD, or \u2018Mad cow disease\u2019 crisis, donating blood in this State. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD has called on the IBTS to also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blood-donation","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3932,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3931\/revisions\/3932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}