Study Calls AIDS Risk Minimal : Blood Is Termed Safer Now Than Decade Ago

Despite public anxiety over the possible transmission of the deadly disease AIDS through blood transfusions, the nation’s blood supply is safer today than it was a decade ago, according to a congressional report released Wednesday.

Blood recipients have a far greater chance of contracting a form of hepatitis than acquired immune deficiency syndrome, said the study, conducted by the Office of Technology Assessment at the request of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Thus far, only about 1% of AIDS cases have been associated with blood transfusions.

Fear Outstrips Risk

“I think that the fear (of AIDS) really outstrips the actual risk that one has,” Dr. Lawrence H. Miike, project director of the study, said. “Hepatitis is of the most concern in the total sense, although AIDS has an emotional aspect. The blood supply is still fairly safe.”

Ten years ago, hepatitis B was the major disease transmitted through blood. However, the danger of hepatitis B has decreased dramatically since the development of a blood-screening test to detect its presence, the report said. Hepatitis A also is rarely transmitted through blood, “because the individual’s blood usually contains the virus during the clinical stage, during which the individual is unlikely to donate blood and which is easily detected during routine donor-screening procedures,” the report said.

Instead, the study said, the most prevalent hepatitis still transmitted through blood is now a form known as non-A, non-B hepatitis, for which there is no test. The report said that 5% to 18% of Americans who receive five or more units of transfused blood develop non-A, non-B hepatitis. Currently, about 90% of all post-transfusion cases of hepatitis are caused by non-A, non-B, according to the report. The remaining 10% are hepatitis B, the study said.

Within several weeks, a new blood-screening test will become available to detect the presence of antibodies to the AIDS virus, indicating whether a donor has been exposed to the virus. Blood collection centers will not use for transfusions blood that has tested positive.

The report raised questions about the impact of health care cost-containment measures on blood suppliers, specifically Medicare’s prospective payment system, which places limits on hospital payment rates for both the services they provide and the purchases they make.

“Hospital management is now taking a close look at the prices that they are charged by blood banks,” a statement issued by the Office of Technology Assessment said. “Regional blood centers are concerned that the distribution networks that have been developed could be disrupted and that they may be unable to support their research and education activities.”

Non-Human Sources of Blood

The technology office said also that recent advances, particularly in the field of recombinant DNA technology, may result in competition with human donors as sources for blood products by the end of the 1980s.

Miike said that non-human sources will probably lessen the chances of transmittable diseases, adding: “What is the reality of developing non-human sources of blood products? There is no doubt that some of the products currently derived from human blood will become available from other sources in the relatively near future. Whether or not these sources will make blood collections obsolete, however, is a different question.”