
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 11, 1990                   TAG: 9007110237
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

RED CROSS: AIDS RULES NOT VIOLATED

The American Red Cross, disputing a report that it didn't report on AIDS cases possibly transmitted through blood transfusions, on Tuesday defended its procedures for assuring the quality of the nation's blood supply.

Red Cross spokesman Bud Good was responding to a report that said the Red Cross failed to notify federal authorities about 228 cases in which patients may have gotten AIDS through contaminated blood transfusions.

"The Red Cross has not failed to comply with FDA requirements to report transfusion-associated AIDS cases for the simple reason that there are no such requirements," Good said.

An FDA report on an inspection of Red Cross' national headquarters in Washington found that none of the cases had been reported to the agency "as required."

But FDA officials said the inspection report, which was disclosed in Tuesday's editions of The Philadelphia Inquirer, was incorrect and that there is no requirement for the Red Cross to report possible transfusion-related AIDS cases to the FDA.

- Associated Press

by CNB