Tighter controls aggravate blood supply shortage

Thursday, May 30, 2002 | 9:52 a.m.

Southern Nevada's blood supply is in critical condition.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is instituting new guidelines on Friday to protect donated blood from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or "mad cow" disease, that could further limit the local supply.

Fewer Las Vegas residents are donating blood and the area's population keeps growing, said Dan Perlstein of United Blood Services.

The Memorial Day weekend brought 10 separate accidents on Interstate 15 Saturday and all victims needed blood, putting more strain on the blood supply, he said.

"The discouraging part is we have had a decline in blood donors while the population continues to grow," Perlstein said.

While roughly 35,000 residents regularly contributed to Southern Nevada's blood bank last year, fewer than 30,000 are rolling up their sleeves this year, Perlstein said.

United Blood Services supplies 19 area hospitals, which demanded 10,000 extra units of blood last year.

This year local hospitals have needed 700 units of extra blood each month.

The national average for donors in cities the size of Las Vegas is 5 percent to 6 percent, compared to 2 percent for Las Vegas, Perlstein said. In the Midwest the rate for donating is 10 percent.

The new FDA guidelines may further reduce the amount of blood collected from Nellis Air Force Base by 25 percent, Perlstein said.

"Military personnel give blood all the time," he said, but those stationed in Europe, especially France and the United Kingdom, will not be eligible to donate because of the stricter FDA order.

The new restrictions also apply to those who have traveled to or lived in the United Kingdom for three months or more between January 1980 and December 1996 or those traveling or living in France for five or more years between January 1980 and the present.

Anyone who has received a blood transfusion in Great Britain since January 1980 cannot donate either, Perlstein said.

Major cities such as New York have had to import European blood to replace dwindling supplies, he said.

So far, Southern Nevada has not had to resort to foreign blood supplies.

"The only answer is for new residents to start contributing to the community's blood supply," Perlstein said.