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Tibor J. Greenwalt, MD

JAMA. 1987;257(9):1220-1221.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

The crisis surrounding the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has had some harmful effects on blood banking. The most devastating have been the negative impact caused by an unfounded belief that it is possible to be infected by blood donation and the unsubstantiated belief that a patient can select safer donors than the professionals responsible for the safety of the blood supply. We hope the beneficial effects of these concerns will outweigh the harmful. Physician and patient anxiety about safety should lead to more circumspect use of blood products. The opportunity may be at hand to overcome the myths that preoperatively a patient's hemoglobin level must be at least 10 g/dL (100 g/L) and hematocrit 30% (0.30) and that these levels have anything to do with wound healing. Lowering these criteria to 8 g/dL (80 g/L) and 24% (0.24), as recently recommended by an expert panel,¹ would significantly decrease patient . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
University of Cincinnati Medical Center Hoxworth Blood Center

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