Blood Bank Screw Up

What is the name of your state? Illinois
I donated blood and was notified that I am HIV positive and positive for Hepatitis B&C. The letter I received never mentioned the HIV either. My doctor ran his own test that came back thankfully, negative. I went through hell for a week wondering what would become of my 5 year old son! Lost 7 lbs. too. Of course that was the only good to come out of it! I have never heard an apology or admission of error from the blood bank in question. My doctor has reported this to the CDC. I am also worried that some person is walking around ill and perhaps their blood was tranfused! What do you think? I am not out to become rich I just want the public to be informed of this! Of course, I will NEVER donate blood again!

Thank you for your time!

You should feel safe. Blood banks are required to notify you if they find a positive test for a variety of diseases. It is more likely that you had a "false" positive than that your blood test results were for another person, although that can happen. Now, because in Public Health we always aimed for two "negatives" I suggest that in about 3 months you have your doctor run another test. This may seem to you to be an unnecessary expense, but it is far less expensive than to find you are infected with either HIV or hepatitis later.

Originally posted by Culkeen2003
What is the name of your state? Illinois
I donated blood and was notified that I am HIV positive and positive for Hepatitis B&C. The letter I received never mentioned the HIV either. My doctor ran his own test that came back thankfully, negative. I went through hell for a week wondering what would become of my 5 year old son! Lost 7 lbs. too. Of course that was the only good to come out of it! I have never heard an apology or admission of error from the blood bank in question. My doctor has reported this to the CDC. I am also worried that some person is walking around ill and perhaps their blood was tranfused! What do you think? I am not out to become rich I just want the public to be informed of this! Of course, I will NEVER donate blood again!

Thank you for your time!

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Hi Culkeen. Whew! That would have been terrifying. All of these positive tests from the blood bank were hopefully confirmed with some specific tests. I used to work communicable diseases (reporting and pre and post test counseling for HIV), but I'm not familiar with what blood bank's / donor testing requirements are (i.e. if they do both the Elisa and Western Blot to confirm the presence of HIV). So, I'm going to ask you -- did your doc confirm this positive HIV with both an Elisa and Western Blot (and then tell you it was a "false positive"?) If you don't know, ask your doc if he did both HIV tests (the Elisa and Western Blot). Like I said, I don't want to alarm you or suggest the blood bank and/or your doctor didn't do what they were supposed to do with respect to this positive HIV, but I have known docs who did not perform both tests (and patients such as yourself were either petrified unnecessarily so and/or were not properly confirmed "false negative". I just wanted to make sure you've received the proper testing and counseling and/or referral. I'm also telling you this because I don't know what the CDC guidelines are with respect to getting back in touch with the doc performed these testing IF the doc didn't perform both tests). Just make sure.

Best of luck to you.

hmmbrdzz