Subject: Panel Finds Test Effective, but Donor Privacy Is Concern Date: Published: 7/10/86 85 lines Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. Panel Finds AIDS Blood-Screening Test Effective, but Donor Privacy Is Concern --- By Joann S. Lublin Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON -- New blood-screening tests have sharply reduced the risk of contracting AIDS from transfusions, but donors' privacy isn't being adequately protected, a federal advisory panel said. A National Institutes of Health panel of private scientists urged blood-collection agencies to make sure that employers, insurers and state health officials don't gain access to the collection agencies' confidential lists of donors who may be infected with acquired immune deficiency syndrome. "Our blood supply is much safer than it was two to four years ago," largely because of widespread screening for AIDS begun in March 1985, said panel chairman Thomas Chalmers, a professor at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine. However, the panel said that an improved test for directly detecting the AIDS virus in the blood is still several years away, and that medical authorities should encourage patients facing elective surgery to donate their own blood in advance. "It is a way of being absolutely certain of the safety of that blood and adds to the blood supply," Dr. Chalmers said. He spoke at a news conference following a three-day conference on screening for the deadly, virus-borne disease. It's estimated that about 400 of the roughly 22,000 Americans stricken so far by AIDS contracted the illness through blood or blood products. The disease ravages the body's immune system and kills through various infections, cancers and brain disorders. Nearly 12,000 people in the U. S. have died from AIDS. Tests of donated blood detect antibodies, which the body produces to try to fight off infections such as AIDS. Only one case of AIDS virus infection from blood transfusions has cropped up since the testing was initiated. Still, as many as 120 infected samples may slip through undetected out of the 12 million annual blood donations, estimated Lincoln Moses, a Stanford University statistics professor and a panel member. Surgical patients face "greater chances of dying from general anesthesia than from contracting AIDS from blood transfusions," Richard Aster, president of the Blood Center of Southeastern Wisconsin, told the news conference. Despite the blood-screening program's obvious benefits, more-specialized followup tests fail to confirm an initial antibody finding in between 70% and 90% of the cases, Dr. Aster said. But the follow-up tests aren't perfect, either. To avoid any possible risk of AIDS-infected blood, blood-collection centers refuse to use the blood of such "false-positive" individuals and keep their names on special lists, which sometimes are shared with other blood centers. Donors aren't usually told about the list. "We believe it is inappropriate to enter a person's name on such a list without his knowledge and without giving him the personal advantage of sharing that knowledge and its meaning," the National Institutes of Health panel concluded in a 19-page "consensus" statement. It contended that people should be informed about the lists before giving blood so they can decide whether to donate. "Our concern is the right of privacy and the use that could be made of these lists if they fell into the wrong hands," explained Dale Cowan, another panel member, in an interview after the conference. Dr. Cowan is a health sciences professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He and other scientists expressed fears that employers or insurers might discriminate against individuals included on such lists. An official of the American Red Cross said it plans to review 20,000 frozen blood samples it has deferred using because of contradictory AIDS antibody-test results. Some donors then will be notified, said S. Gerald Sandler, associate vice president for medical operations. (This article is made available here by Dow Jones Co. for the personal and non-commercial use of callers to this bbs, in the hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering from the disease and others who are seeking to help them.)