• PBSC compensation will stand, US Attorney General not filing with Supreme Court
• 9th circuit court declines to reconsider PBSC ruling
• DOJ appeal of 9th Circuit
• Flynn Plaintiffs Response to Rehearing Petition
• ABC Issues Statement on Donor Compensation in Light of 9th U.S. Circuit Ruling
• ABC Supports Voluntary Donation of Blood, Organs, and Stem Cells
• Journal Article Discusses Consequences of Compensating HSC Donors
• PBSC statement 12-14-2011
• 9th Circuit ruling on Bone Marrow
• Institute of Justice article
• NMDP opposition statement

By Erin Loury, Los Angeles Times
Chagas is a potentially fatal parasitic disease most often found in Latin American immigrants. There had been little awareness of it in the U.S., but that’s changing.

The cryptic letter arrived a few weeks after Maira Gutierrez donated blood for the first time in 1997. The Red Cross had rejected her blood. It listed a phone number to call.

Gutierrez left a message, then waited three agonizing days for a reply, fearing she had HIV. The truth proved more confusing than reassuring: She had something called Chagas’ disease, an ailment she’d never heard of, spread by a winged insect incongruously dubbed the “kissing bug.”

A Red Cross pamphlet told her the parasitic affliction could be fatal — it could stop her heart. But doctors she consulted didn’t [...]

Moving Forward

In the end, it boiled down to a complex ruling on a complex law. US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the insurance mandate in the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional, but that Congress had the power to impose a tax on those who did not buy such insurance. While the Court’s liberal minority did not agree that the mandate was unconstitutional, they joined Justice Roberts because the net effect was that his view upheld the act. Ironically, as a presidential candidate, constitutional scholar Barack Obama opposed an insurance mandate because he questioned its validity. As president, however, he agreed to go along with the Congressional Democrats when they, in a failed bid to attract moderate Republican support, took the mandate idea from Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare overhaul.

While an important election looms that still could change the situation, our third branch of government has now endorsed [...]

GENEVA — The World Health Organization on Thursday called for more people to donate blood regularly, as the UN agency marked World Blood Donor Day.

“Every year, millions of people rely on the generosity of another person to donate blood,” the WHO said. “Yet, blood donation rates vary considerably and the demands for blood and blood products are increasing worldwide.”

“To meet these needs, more people must come forward to give blood voluntarily, and regularly,” it added.

“With increasing life expectancy and the subsequent increase in the number of age-related, chronic diseases, including cancers, that require blood and blood products for treatment, demand outstrips supply,” warned Dr Neelam Dhingra, coordinator for blood transfusion safety at the WHO. “In addition, some blood products used to treat cancer patients, like platelets, have a shelf-life of only five days. This means we increasingly need more blood donors to [...]

By Newsroom America Staff
(Newsroom America) — A blood sucking bug which can cause life-threatening digestive and heart problems may be moving further into the United States as a result of a warmer climate, according to scientists.

In the spring of 1835, Charles Darwin was bitten in Argentina by a “great wingless black bug,” he wrote in his diary.

“It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, about an inch long, crawling over one’s body,” Darwin wrote, “before sucking they are quite thin, but afterwards round & bloated with blood.”

In all likelihood, Darwin’s nighttime visitor was a member of Reduviid family of insects — the so-called kissing bugs because of their habit of biting people around the mouth while they sleep.

From this attack, some infectious disease experts have speculated, the famed naturalist might have contracted Chagas disease, [...]

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Transfusion Results Same for Stored, Fresh Red Cells