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

DATE: SATURDAY, June 24, 1995                   TAG: 9506260054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

DOCTORS URGE FDA TO RECALL BLOOD

The government should recall blood donated by people later diagnosed with a rare but fatal brain disease and notify any patients who received it, an advisory panel of doctors says - though nobody knows if the disease is actually transmitted through blood.

Thousands of patients and millions of units of blood products could be involved if donors with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are discovered, because many plasma products are made of blood pooled from tens of thousands of donors. There's no test or treatment that could be given to recipients of the donated blood.

But it's better to take extra precautions with the nation's blood supply, the panel of scientists told the Food and Drug Administration this week.

``This is a classic example of uncertainty,'' said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the patient advocacy group Public Citizen and a member of the FDA advisory committee. ``There's a theoretical possibility this could be transmitted by blood. It's unlikely but not impossible.''

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease causes sponge-like holes in the brain. It's very rare, afflicting just one in a million people, but invariably fatal. It kills about seven months after symptoms appear, although it can lie dormant for 25 years. No one knows what causes it, and there is no test to detect it.

Scientists have never found a case transmitted by blood, but it can be transmitted through tissue, such as corneal transplants. Seven patients with the disease who donated blood in this country have been discovered since 1983, three since last fall. In each case, blood banks followed FDA advice to voluntarily recall or quarantine the blood products, at a cost of more than $50 million.

by CNB