Subject: Red Cross Forced To Disclose Donor Data
Date: Published: 9/1/92 (40 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Law -- Legal Beat:
    Red Cross Forced to Disclose
    Information About Blood Donor
    ----
    By Junda Woo
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

[98 lines irrelevant to AIDS omitted.  -- sysop]

    RED CROSS MUST DISCLOSE information about a blood donor.
    The federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled that the mother
 of an infant who was infected with the HIV virus during a blood
 transfusion in 1985 and died of AIDS in 1988 may obtain medical
 information about the person who donated blood used in that
 transfusion.
    The court affirmed a lower court order requiring the Red Cross to
 disclose the donor's identity to the court, but not to the
 plaintiff.  Some medical information about the donor will then be
 turned over to the plaintiff.  This will allow her to find out what
 happened during the donor-screening process, which is crucial in
 proving her claim that the Red Cross was negligent in supplying the
 blood, the appeals court wrote in its opinion.
    Disclosing such information, however, "has the potential to turn
 away blood donors," said Elizabeth Hall, spokeswomen for the
 American Red Cross.  During the screening process, potential donors
 tell Red Cross personnel about their sexual activities to enable the
 screeners to determine whether to take the blood.
    Plaintiff's attorney Bernard McIntyre of Beaufort, S. C., said his
 client's case against the Red Cross will be tried in early 1993.
    (Watson v. Lowcountry Red Cross and Medical University of South
 Carolina, Fourth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Richmond, Va., No. 
 91-2053)

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