The Nation - News from June 30, 1988

Many surgical patients may be receiving unnecessary blood transfusions at a time when the process “carries documented risks of infection and immune changes,” and the number of transfusions “should be kept to a minimum,” a federal advisory panel recommended. The AIDS epidemic has raised concerns about the transmission of infectious agents through the blood supply, stimulating a reexamination of the benefit-to-risk relationship for transfusions, the panel, convened by the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.