No tests can detect Babesiosis before blood donation
Article Source: msnbc.com
from:msnbc.comTick-borne parasite infecting U.S. blood supply, CDC says
Seeded on Mon Sep 5, 2011 9:11 PM EDT (msnbc.com)
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Babesiosis...really? is that they only name they could come up with? I know it comes from Babesia parasites passed on by tics but c'mon! Ok people here's something fun for ya. What would be your medical name for it? Make it fun!
Mine is Babeseitis (itis) is always scary!
It's a term from Wayne and Garth. "You must have Babesiosis, because the fever you're giving me is deadly".
"You must have simple chronic Babesiosis, because your sweet face is killin' me."
- So can tainted blood be identified beforehand and removed from the supply or are we gambling every time we need a transfusion?
The CDC warns about receiving blood in Baboesis-endemic areas. I'm in CT...I wonder if I have the option of telling my hospital I only want out of state blood.
YEP
I'm in NY and have had Lyme 2X. I had been a regular blood donor, but after my Lyme experience I told them and now they mark my blood as "experimantal" and only use it for testing purposes, I assume that is in an effort to find a way to detect tick born diseases.
BTW, Lyme and the other tick borne diseases are very hard to identify and doctors often misdiagnose them as they mimic other diseases.
MM-
You are right about the inability or the difficulty for labs to diagnose Lyme Disease infections through blood tests. My Neurologist had me tested by a lab in California that he trusted for completing an accurate test. The lab procedure, he told me, is very demanding of the technicians and must be done properly. If all procedures aren't performed exactingly, you will get more false readings as the other labs do. My insurance wouldn't cover the cost of that particular lab and it cost me about a thousand dollars. We need these drug companies and these research labs to start finding an accurate test for these disease carrying microbes. If a lab can (today) find substances as minute as Parts Per Billion in whatever substance then we have the equipment. We just need to know what substances these microbes leave behind (as markers) to be able to make accurate diagnoses possible. The experts really need to dig into this problem immediately. There are a LOT of sufferers out there who are being misdiagnosed or not diagnosed because of faulty lab procedures or lab procedures that simply don't work but we pay for them anyway.
If something so small can make people so sick and cause such consternation inside the CDC then there is an answer. They need to find it today. Not down the road after it infects the entire blood supply.
WmWallace: It would not matter which state you get your blood from. Lyme and all its co-infections are in every state. The CDC just chooses some states to be higher risk states than others. They really have no clue in my opinion. Even if you want to believe that some states are no to low risk for the disease, please keep in mind: this is a global economy. People travel. They do not stay locked up in their homes in their home state. Think about it.
Blood transfusions are 1940s medicine anyway. In most of the cases where blood transfusions are administered, they are unneccessay. The trigger point for a blood transfusion used to be if the blood count went below 10, but doctors have learned that it can go much lower and the patient still be just fine. Plus, there are so many alternatives to transfusions that are safer and cheaper. Patients who do not have blood transfusions recover more quickly and are less likely to have complications, such as getting an infection from someone else's tainted blood. Also, surgeons tend to be a little more careful working inside someone if they know they cannot simply pump them up with a bag of blood if they nick an artery.
Going without blood tranfusions is just all around better medicine, but many doctors are still practicing what was taught 30 years ago and are often unwilling to update their techniques.
[citation needed]
Hearsay is not acceptable.
Heresay? Check this link, remove the space between . and com youtube. com/watch?v=JAWhRqCjT9w
Will, Just what are you basing this theory on ? Are you an MD?
The New england Journal of Medicine, for one, but ongoing studies and work being conducted at respected medical institutions.
http://www.pennmedicine.org/health_info/bloodless/
Most doctors utilize an evidence based approach regarding the therapies they use. To say that most blood transfusions are unnecessary is likely false. Just because a patient can go without an infusion and still live does not mean that that is the best decision. Receving a transfusion is often an important step in a healing process, that addresses more than just survival. One thing to also remember - the ramifications that we have for our doctors' mistakes. Doctors infuse blood when they need to, and sometimes before, because a mistake on the other end might end up with serious consequences for the patient, not to mention the multimillion dollar lawsuit.
Jon, How about Haven'tgottaclueosis! Just another example of CDC Inc. without a clue to what really happens in the real world. Who is pushing alternative blood products or has a new testing procedure that was refused, will come to the rescue. This crowd is so corrupt and filled with washed up scientists that it is a shame. CDC, Inc. has no clue about immunity, parasites, and disease, so why should we be surprised. Stay healthy!
Interesting that this article precipitates attacks on the CDC. More right wing demagoguery about how any governmental action is silly and useless...can't wait until they get rid of that absurd military and let the natural flow of human ecstasy and the free markets determine who rules what lands. Oh yeah and will they finally rip up that annoying Interstate System Ike insisted on building?
Exactly. What the alternatives. No blood transfusions or no monitoring at all. Or get one and who knows what parasites or diseases come with it. If it wasn't for the CDC we wouldn't even have this information as a warning.
That's funny I don't see any "right wing attacks" on the CDC. Why are you bringing politics into this?
omg, singe I think your already infected!!! quick go get your head cut off!!!
Get Tiger blood instead.
Well, at least we don't have to worry about gay men being allowed to give blood so, the blood supply MUST be safe...
Oh wait, this incident shows the flaw ( if not the 80's hysteria) in that policy...
China has their method of population control, mother nature has her own. There is NO species on this planet that can maintain a constant population increase. The fact that scientists actually say things like "when population reaches 12 billion", makes me wonder if there is any wisdom in the human race. The only type of organisms that behave like us are bacteria and viruses, meaning; they reproduce mindlessly until the host kills them or they kill the host. Our host (Earth) is already showing signs of illness. Red tide, dead zones in every ocean, rapid antigen shifts in diseases, ocean acidification, etc. The CDC has been doing a study for 31 years, and don't even have an effective means for diagnosis or blood screening????? Maybe the next study will be on how the most intelligent species on the planet almost caused their own extinction. I'm not really surprised though, after all these are the same people that think there is a good reason for maintaining a stockpile of smallpox.
if the cdc would stop denying how the usa is being effected/infected by lymes disease then maybe we could get a handle on all of these rare infections.they are afraid of public scrutiny and keep putting a lid on the findings and go after all the doctors that treat it correctly to cover their own inabilities of recognizing a severe threat to a huge part of the public. this and three other infections are carried by ticks. i know of what i speak it took me three years to get diagnosed because the doctors feared repercussions from the cdc and government.
VICKITRUCKER,,,,,,I do not know the reason, but I do know that most doctors are extremely reluctant to make a diagnosis of Lyme disease or the other tick borne diseases. I have always had a suspicion that it is possible that these diseases "escaped" from government testing at Plum Island.
VICKITRUCKER- Until a year ago I was unaware that there were numerous tick-borne diseases in my state. If, here in Connecticut,( one of the top states infected with these diseases), the medical profession doesn't routinely test for ALL of them, many people will continue to suffer long term consequences until properly diagnosed. Just last month my husband was tested for Lyme disease, even though he requested they also test for Babesiosis and Anaplasmosis. The doctor said he preferred to wait until the blood work came back. Well, it was negative for Lyme. He had waited a week for test results. Once again he had to have blood drawn and after another week it came back positive for Anaplasmosis. Luckily for him the doxycycline they started him on was effective on the anaplasmosis. But not so if he had had Babesiosis. He would have suffered for two more weeks without proper diagnosis. After a three week regimen of antibiotics he is no longer bed ridden, but he says he still doesn't feel quite right. I guess until one of these doctors suffer the disease themselves, these tick borne diseases will take a back seat.
Contrary to popular belief, there are people that have orginal thoughts and ideas. The health and well being of the animal kingdom, of which humans are one species, should NOT be distilled down to right wing or left wing propaganda. My views on the CDC, APHIS, NIH, USDA, FDA, etc. are based on FACT and have no bias to any political party. I am the Director of Research for an Institute that has studied immunity, in animals, for over thirty years. If these governmental agencies were NOT the frontline of defense, for epidemics, to animals and humans, I could care less if they were idiots. But since they have that charge, my fears are well founded.
check out lyme disease you will find the cdc has been hiding much from the public and recklessly playing with americans health. this is just one of three infections carried along with a deer/ lyme tick. i had it for three years. the us government should clean-up its own departments before trying to fight other countries on their practices. can anyone say population growth control?
I had babesiosis and took atovoquone for 6 month, twice to eradicate. The disease is very much like malaria. I also have O negative blood and when I tried to donate blood I was told I could never donate blood again. I was diagnosed through blood tests so there is definitely a way to test, just not sure why organizations that solicit blood donations have not adopted the same tests used on me to diagnose.
I do know that these same groups that solicit for donations do not readily make it known that if you have/had babesiosis that you can not donate. They make it known that if you have AIDS/HIV that it is not acceptable in all their literature but I did not find out until I showed up in person and filled out the paperwork and was turned away.
If you go to and check they do not mention babesiosis or babesia microti. I was told that even though I no longer have babesiosis that all the tests will show antibodies and cause a false positive for people that would receive my blood. So it seems that they do not have a test that can discern between antibodies from an active case of babesiosis or whether blood simply has antibodies from a previous infection.
Still odd that the blood donation websites do not list babesiosis openly.
the link to redcrossblood.org did not make it in the original post.
Woodman- The tests they have take a long time and are not all that accurate, producing many false positives and false negatives, that is why they have trouble testing blood donors. I was asked last time I donated, and now they mark my blood as for use in "testing only" ( or something like that) when I donate.
FYI - Blood donations are a big business too. When you donate your blood to the Red Cross, for example, they turn around and sell it at a pretty significant profit to hospitals, which is why many hospitals are investigating the reduction in use of blood.
Again , another incident of reporting without investigating the subject first ! If they would have looked just a little deeper they would of found an entire population infected by tick born diseases , then there would of been a real story . PS , I gave blood at a blood drive about 4 years ago , and the Red Cross told me my blood couldn't be used . But did not tell me why .
Reply to singe and a few others........
I hope you never get any tick-borne disease, but possibly you should, then let us hear what you have to say.
Amazing how much more intellegent so many sound when they keep their mouths shut!!
Memo to all Medical Insurance companies: The hemophilia community lost over half its population in the 80s to AIDS because it took too long to recognize the disease and come up with tests to screen the blood supply. You've been on a campaign to force the community to go back to using blood-based products because the blood supply is "safe" and it's cheaper than manufactured, non-blood products. Well, guess what, here's another reason why the community is so resistant to your demands. We don't want to be guinea pigs, again, for the next blood-borne killer disease.
Reply to singe and a few others........
I hope you never get a tick-borne disease, but maybe you should then let us hear what you have to say.
Amazing how much more intellegent some people sould when they keep their mouths shut.
Quick,
We should join with our Republican presidential hopefuls and cut the funding to the CDC before they come up with any more expensive health issues that we simply can't, as a caring, first world society, afford to confront. Although it is too bad about the underweight babies.
Quick,
We should join with our Republican presidential hopefuls and cut the funding to the CDC before they come up with any more expensive health issues that we simply can't, as a caring, first world society, afford to confront. Although it is too bad about the underweight babies.
Quick,
We should join with our Republican presidential hopefuls and cut the funding to the CDC before they come up with any more expensive health issues that we simply can't, as a caring, first world society, afford to confront. Although it is too bad about the underweight babies.
OK, so this disease happens roughly SIX times a year over 30 years... 2 a year for the first 20 and a six time increase to 13 in the last 10. Just how many thousand transfusions are performed....? This is not NEWSWORTHY. No more newsworthy on a national basis than a newborn to the average person. Yes it is newsworthy to those impacted but don't we have larger issues to deal with?
Singe, you're an idiot, go back to the rock you crawled out from under in some other country other than the US. Either appreciate and support what we have or leave, MORON!
Well well well, new diseases are popping up, weather is gone haywire, people are turning into zombies, I'm so EXCITED!!
Well,No tests for Hep C until what 1992?There's alot worse out there than this.You travel better get your shots.No vaccine for Dengue.Don't call it breakbone for nuthin
How are they detecting it after infection?..by symptoms? If it is found by blood test after infection then why can't the blood be tested before transfusion? Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? And, is it really anything new, or just something not known before?
I have no problem reading news stories, however, it seems that overall we don't get any real in-depth reporting anymore. Most of our "news" seems to be fluff. I think most reporters and journalists have lost their credibility to celebrity status.