The State - News from July 16, 1985

California’s top health official urged that all donors of organs and transplant tissues be tested for acquired immune deficiency syndrome antibodies “before such materials are used.” Kenneth Kizer, director of the state Department of Health Services, said that “all organ and tissue transplant units, sperm banks, local health departments . . . were sent notification of the new guidelines . . . . Although no cases of AIDS in California have been linked to transplanted organs or artificial insemination, blood, semen and other body fluids are known to harbor the AIDS virus, and these guidelines are being issued in an effort to prevent the occurrence of AIDS from organ-tissue transplantations and artificial inseminations in the future.” The new guidelines will apply to the seven sperm banks in California, as well as private physicians who perform artifical inseminations in their offices, various university medical centers and other medical facilities.