Davenport, Ia- Federal changes in rules on blood donation have made more people eligible to donate, and the timing couldn’t be better.
Blood donors are in high demand due to blood drives being canceled due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Director of the Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center Pete Lux said that under the old rules, people who lived in Europe for three months or more were not allowed to donate blood in the US.
“People who were deferred for living in Europe on a military base, that’s no longer a deferral,” Lux says. “We want to make sure we can contact those people, get them back in our systems, and get them back to getting calls and reminders.”
The regulations were put in place years ago due to Mad Cow Disease, but the Food and Drug Administration has lifted restrictions for certain countries.
Other eligibility rules have changed as well. For example, those who’ve had a tattoo or piercing -are- allowed to donate blood after a three-month wait instead of a year. This waiting period also applies to those who may have been exposed to HIV. The Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center serves 115 hospitals in Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri.
