You think the scalpel has its dangers? In the United States the Red Cross claims that blood transfusions oftentimes can have its own complications. A chance of dying is not uncommon.
It is not only alarming of the dangers of contracting diseases from tainted blood, but a patient with cancer-a blood transfusion can lower the strength of the immune system.
Doctors follow a series of guidelines, which have very little in the way of scientific evidence as to who should and shouldn't receive blood. Approximately one-third to three quarters of those receiving blood is transfused inappropriately treating a low blood volume, or a low cell count such as anaemia.
Statistically, there is a gross overuse of blood products like albumin and plasma and also whole blood or red blood cells. Since there are no guidelines to common usage standards, patterns of use vary from place to place.
People have begun questioning many of the most recognized practices in terms of administrating blood before and during surgery. One thousand American anaesthesiologists have been questioned. They concluded that there were wide range of variations in transfusions practices: Many transfusions are based on routine and precaution, rather than much scientific data.
It has happened numerous times that doctors have administered the wrong blood type. In an unofficial questionnaire sheet which was sent out to four thousand hospitals in the haematology laboratory departments in the UK- One-third of the two hundred and forty five laboratories that responded reported multiple incidents in which their patients received the wrong blood type. Most cases were recorded after the patient was given the wrong blood type while either in the ward or in the operating room.
There were one hundred and eleven such errors, where six people died and twenty-three were seriously ill afterwards. Amazingly this specific question concerning administration of the wrong blood type was NOT even on the questionnaire-but was concluded by the laboratories.
However, this error rate corresponds with that of the United States, which is supposed to have the tightest strictures on blood usage in the world.
Even if you believe that patients who have given and have received blood is warranted, the number of blood-born diseases a person can contract from other people might well change your mind. The arrival of AIDS has given blood transfusions a close link to playing Russian roulette.
Starting in 1991, a new screening test had been developed for detecting the hepatitis C virus. This test showed that an estimated 1 in two thousand blood donors tested apparently positive for hepatitis C antibodies. This test is not necessarily 100% accurate. For example, three hundred and fifty-eight blood donors revealed as positive. Today there is the second-generation recombinant immunoblot assay (RIBA-2) or the Murex BCJ11 ELISA, the ELISA test was proven to be inaccurate more than 3/4 of the time.
In addition to hepatitis, the risk of getting human T-cell leukemia (HTLV-1) from tainted blood is 10x more likely than the risk of contracting HIV!
Blood transfusions have been linked with:
1) Organ failures
2) Reoccurrence of cancer
3) High risk of postoperative infections
4) Graft-versus-host disease (a condition affecting joints, heart, and blood cells where the recipient body rejects the transfused blood.
Besides increasing your chances dying or contracting a disease, a person can be ill with side effects from blood that can be just as severe as the most horrible reaction from a prescribed drug. Minor and major reactions can include:
1) Hives breakout or life threatening allergic reactions
2) Fever or chills
3) Severe reaction in the lungs-sometimes fatal.
4) Infection
5) Contracting a STD such as cytomegalovis (CMV).
