I work as a medical screener and a phlebotomist in Southern Louisiana. First of all, it is not Red Cross's call or Tenet's call on whether they can accept a donor or not. It is the FDA. They tell us who we can accept and who we can not. If we would accept any of those donors, it is an FDA reportable error, and the screener and phlebotomist could get canned. The reason they do not accept them is because as ya'll stated, they do not know enough about the disease. There is no test for CJD and they do not want it to be spread through donations. It is all about statistics. The longer a person stayed in the UK, the better chance they had to encounter the disease. THe reason the military is deferred if they were stationed in Europe is because the commisaries where the military buys their food all had British beef. Britain is our biggest ally and we just used their beef. People who are now permanently deferred will not be for long. THey will find a test that can detect the disease, and those people who were once deferred will be able to donate. IT is just like tattoos. They once thought that all tattoo parlors were dirty. They realized that most are clean. Not only that, they have NAT tests which can detect AIDS and Hepatitis viruses within eight days of getting the disease. So don't fret, ya'll will become regular donors once again.
