Submitted 1 year ago by jeena@jemmy.jeena.net to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
I was listening to the American military radio here in Korea and they invited soldiers to donate blood with some exceptions:
I really wonder what could have happened to someone who lived in Europe for more than 5 years which triggered this particular exception.
My guess is that it’s related to mad cow disease, and it hasn’t been updated in a while? I couldn’t find anything when I searched
Here is ours, and the history behind some of the changes blood.ca/…/changes-donation-criteria-blood-donati…
Ah yeah, that sounds about right, the 5 years incubation time and so on. Thanks!
The five years is just due to cumulative risk. Someone decided to make that the cutoff.
Mad cow disease can take decades to have an effect. If you are some infected meat and have the wrong genetics you could wind up with a sponge for a brain 30 years later.
Prions are terrifying.
I am not allowed to give blood, because i once got a blood transfusion in the eighties and i have a tiny, tiny risk of infecting people with mad cow disease. I only found out when i decided to give blood some years back and found out i am not allowed to.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy
And the human form, vCJD - variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Weird that it is entirety of Europe. In Finland it is only asked if you’ve been in or lived in the UK in the 90s iirc.
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Now I’m curious what blood-related debacle was happening in the UK in the 90s.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Mad cow disease was prevalent.