U.S. Antitrust Probe Aimed at Red Cross

The Justice Department has begun an antitrust investigation of the American Red Cross centered on its exclusive contract to sell a possible new blood-scrubbing technology, the Associated Press has learned. Competitors fear that if the Red Cross controls the technology for scrubbing HIV and certain other viruses out of plasma, some of the smaller banks that provide half the nation’s blood could be forced out of business. The nation’s blood supply already is very safe, experts stress, because of numerous tests for infection. But scientists have been hunting ways to make it even safer, avoiding even the rare infection that now slips through.