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| Britain |
| British troops provided with unscreened blood |
| 2008-01-10 |
| Not the NHS to blame this time EIGHTEEN British soldiers were last night facing an agonising wait to see if they will contract a deadly disease through contaminated blood supplied by America. Today it was revealed that six British civilian workers may have also received the blood transfusions. The gravely wounded troops needed drastic transfusions after cheating death on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Now they fear they could yet be killed — by donated blood that was not properly screened and certified by US authorities. It could leave them vulnerable to potentially lethal infections such as HIV, hepatitis and syphilis. The Sun is describing this as a grotesque example of "friendly fire". Somehow their outrage has left them unable to ask whether the same unscreened blood was provided to American and other coalition troops. Yes, this is scandalous but it is hardly an instance of British troops being treated any more cavalierly than they are by their own government. |
| Posted by:Excalibur |
| #12 British troops provided with unscreened blood Just another pile of Lies plastered onto the Mountains of cowardly Lies made against the USA by the same breed ball of inadequate Pygmies in the British media who were selected because they were born without testicles, little envy driven nut-less wonders who hate themselves so much they are driven to into vicious contempt for America and Americans; ...because our courageous Men and Women have what the Brit Pygmies will never have, Gigantic Stones! and our Wymins have Beautiful Gigantic Metaphorical Stones! whew!, Yeah! Good Old Muscular America and Beautiful Wymin Americans with SUPER Blood!! >:D |
| Posted by: RD 2008-01-10 17:51 |
| #11 Truly, Excal. I want to look into donating blood at Walter Reed or Bethesda Naval. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2008-01-10 16:33 |
| #10 It is amazing the level of outrage they can sustain when they acknowledge these men would all have been dead except for American medical assistance. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2008-01-10 15:17 |
| #9 "Unlike the British system, which tests designated blood donors before they deploy on operations and when they are in the field...." The British system does sound better...except for the part where they obviously RAN OUT of their own supply. Perhaps a little better planning on their part in the future???? |
| Posted by: Clem Sheck9754 2008-01-10 15:05 |
| #8 Britian, how you treat these troops is how God will deal with you. Making them change on runways and giving them unscreened blood pisses me off. Get your act together britian you filthy country. |
| Posted by: newc 2008-01-10 14:26 |
| #7 The Telegraph offers more specific detail about the issue: Unlike the British system, which tests designated blood donors before they deploy on operations and when they are in the field, the Americans randomly ask soldiers to donate while they are in the field. While the blood is retrospectively tested poor administration meant the Americans could not be certain all transfusions were clean and hundreds of potentially infected US troops are awaiting test results. But the US Department of Defence said the American donors who provided the blood had now all tested negative for hepatitis and HIV. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/10/nblood310.xml |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2008-01-10 13:21 |
| #6 The only "unscreened" blood on the battlefield used by Americans is from direct donation by other soldiers on site. However, its been policy that all soldiers deployed overseas are personally screen before deployment just for such situations. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-01-10 13:02 |
| #5 If its in the Sun then you have to take with a grain of salted caution. Most likely this will turn out to be a fizzle. |
| Posted by: Ron Paul 2008-01-10 12:43 |
| #4 If this blood was obtained through normal channels it WAS screened. The only way it could have gotten through normal screening that I can think of is if a blood donor began to exhibit symptoms after donation. There is a period of time after initial infection that screening cannot detect. That is one reason (among many) that the military does not like to enlist folks with risky behaviiors. |
| Posted by: Throger Thains8048 2008-01-10 11:48 |
| #3 Or the story may simply be a load of common rubbish. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2008-01-10 11:33 |
| #2 it is very sad and I also wonder how it could have happened. They didn't tell us how, so I suspect that the blood was needed so urgently that they used donations that were not yet screened or some other perfectly logical explanation. |
| Posted by: Whomong Guelph4611 2008-01-10 11:23 |
| #1 Ugh. What broke? |
| Posted by: gorb 2008-01-10 11:21 |