[KathieI]

Originally Posted by erictarleton

would love to give but when I turned up at the van last month I was told that as I was British they would not accept my blood! Something to do with mad cow disease. The fact that I have not lived in the UK seems irrelevant. Rules are rules.

Maddening or as we Brits say Bloody ridiculous

Eric

Very clever, Eric. Sounds like your hanging around with PTurner, LOL.

Unfortunately, I have heard that rule. If you have visited certain parts of the world within a certain time frame, they cannot accept your blood donation. It does seem kinda silly but apparently it has to do with the cost of testing that blood to be sure you are not carrying something serious. They still test it, but I guess they rule out "possible" high risk donations.

The other terrible thing I found out is that, when you donate your own blood for surgery, if they don't have to use it, they simply discard it. I thought that was awfully wasteful but they did explain again the costs of testing the blood for public use is very costly. Doesn't make any sense to me but again, those are the rules.

Thanks Dilly for the support. Its very helpful to encourage all to participate.