Red Cross Attacks Reagan Suggestion on Blood Supply

The American Red Cross Tuesday criticized President Reagan’s proposal that Americans stockpile their own blood to avoid contracting AIDS through blood transfusions, saying that the resulting diminished blood supply would deprive “patients in desperate need” of “a life-saving transfusion.”

“The most dangerous unit of blood is the one that is not available when needed,” said Richard Schubert, president of the American Red Cross.

Reagan made the comments Monday in an Oval Office interview with The Times, in which he described autologous donation as a “practical answer.”

“Why don’t healthy and well people give blood for themselves?” he said. “And then it can be kept in case they ever need a transfusion, they can get a transfusion of their own blood and they don’t have to gamble.”

But Schubert said this approach was useful only “for the relatively few people who know that they will require blood in the near future and are able to donate the blood needed in advance.”

He added: “However, this approach is almost never effective for most needs, such as traumatic injuries, open-heart or major surgery, or other procedures that require large quantities of blood, or when the individual in need of emergency blood transfusions is far from home.”

In Paris, meanwhile, physicians at an international AIDS conference expressed incredulity at the President’s suggestion.

“That’s devastating,” said Alix Adrien of Montreal General Hospital. “The people from the Red Cross have been specifically trying to avoid such statements from prominent people so as not to deter people from giving blood.”

Dr. Paul Volberding of San Francisco General Hospital said that the American blood supply is “extremely safe” and that less than 1% was infected by the virus even before the medical community took steps to prevent AIDS victims from donating blood.