Free Republic

Democratic [propaganda is all over the media right now, advocating for the total lifting of the ban on blood donations from "men who have sex with men." It is being treated as a "human rights" and "equality" issue by Democratic politicians, activists and sympathizers. A gay Democratic congressman, Jared Polis of Colorado, is calling for the ban to be lifted. And this: "On Tuesday, six members of the U.S. Congress (led by Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois, who is the vice chairman of the House LGBT Equality Caucus), sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf requesting the agency...

A tick-borne infection known as Babesiosis, which can cause severe disease and even death, is becoming a growing threat to the U.S. blood supply, government researchers said on Monday. There are currently no diagnostic tests approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that can detect the infection before people donate blood.

A Special Holiday Request Posted: December 21, 2010 The State of California recently adopted stricter anti-pollution regulations which obligate the blood bank to progressively decommission seven out of eight of its existing bloodmobiles. As a consequence, we need an extra $1 million for our bloodmobile fleet. So I am asking you to make a generous contribution so that we can start acquiring replacement bloodmobiles critical to our life-sustaining mission in the community. Blood is powerful, irreplaceable, and essential to our security. In the U.S., someone needs blood every two seconds to survive and recover from injuries, cancers, complications during surgery...

WOODBURY, N.Y. – A New York man is donating his 320th pint of blood this week, making him one of two people in the U.S. who has given 40 gallons. Seventy-five-year-old Al Fischer of Massapequa (mass-ah-PEE'-kwah) plans to reach the milestone Tuesday, 58 years after he started giving blood. According to a New York Blood Center official, only 83-year-old Maurice Wood has donated more blood than Fischer. Wood is a retired railroad inspector from St. Louis. Fischer, a print shop operator, donates blood about six times a year. He says he and Wood are engaged in a friendly rivalry and...

Scientists, Cord Blood Transplant Recipients Call on Senate to Pass S681 Establishing National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network; Bill Would Create More Options for Critically Ill Patients WASHINGTON, April 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- New York Blood Center's (NYBC) President and CEO, Robert L. Jones, M.D., its National Cord Blood Program Director, Pablo Rubinstein, M.D., cord blood transplant recipients, will join Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) -- a strong supporter of improving the options of patients who need transplants -- at a Senate Briefing on Monday, April 4 to urge passage of the Cord Blood Stem Cell Act of 2005...

Saving umbilical blood saves lives, says panel Friday, April 15, 2005 By LAURAN NEERGAARD ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - Blood saved from newborns' umbilical cords could help treat about 11,700 Americans a year with leukemia and other devastating diseases, yet most is routinely thrown away, a panel of influential scientists said Thursday in calling for a tripling of the nation's supply. Cord blood is rich in stem cells, the building blocks that produce blood - the same stem cells that make up the bone-marrow transplants that help many people survive certain cancers and other diseases. When frozen from cord blood shortly...

WASHINGTON — For more than a decade, gay rights advocates have grumbled about a federal policy that forbids blood donation by men who have had sex with men. They say that the policy, originally intended to keep HIV-positive blood from entering the nation's blood supply, implies gay men are inherently ill and that it prevents healthy people from donating. Occasional protests and talks with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which oversees blood banks, have brought no change. Now, some college students have taken up the cause, and they're taking a new tack. Instead of pressuring the FDA directly, they...

With stem cell research so closely tied to Umbilical Cord Blood, we thought it a good idea to get a somewhat comprehensive list of Cord Blood Banks put together. Additionally, since we have been tracking a many stem cell research companies and organizations we will try to keep this list up to date as we go. New cord blood banking firms and cord blood research centers seem to be popping up everywhere, so this list will obviously change over time. First, we will list the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) associated banks. Cord blood banks in the National Marrow Donor...

A six-story parking garage under construction at the National Institutes of Health collapsed Monday, pinning one person in the debris, authorities said. Authorities don't yet know what caused the top three floors of the structure to collapse around 9 a.m., said NIH spokesman John Burklow. Besides the person pinned in the debris, several people had been trapped, but were being freed, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue spokesman Pete Piringer said. The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear, he said. The sprawling campus of the federal agency covers more than 300 acres on the outskirts of Washington.