Blood Safety Recommendations - November 1998
DATE: November 30, 1998
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: Stephen D. Nightingale, M.D., Executive Secretary
Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability
SUBJECT: November 24, 1998 Recommendations of the Advisory Committee
1. The Secretary of Health and Human Services should recommend legislation
that would lower barriers to the use of federal data bases for locating individuals
at risk of hepatitis C infection.
2. The Department of Health and Human Services should allocate sufficient additional
resources to permit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to work with
state and local health departments to facilitate education, testing, and referral
programs for individuals at risk of hepatitis C infection.
3. The Department of Health and Human Services should investigate supplemental
sources of financial support to facilitate prompt completion of targeted lookback
for individuals at risk of transfusion-transmitted hepatitis C infection.
4. The Health Care Financing Administration should remove financial barriers
to testing of individuals identified by current government standards as being
at risk of hepatitis C infection.
5. The Secretary of Health and Human Services should take all necessary steps
to insure completion of current lookback programs within currently recommended
time frames.
6. The Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability supports Recommendation
1A and 3 of the Seventh Report of the House Committee on Government Reform and
Oversight.
7. The current targeted lookback program should be expanded to include recipients
of blood from donors subsequently identified as repeat reactive by the single
antigen (EIA-1) screening test for hepatitis C infection that was licensed in
1990.
8.Implementation of the prior motion should be deferred until the Public Health Service has
had an opportunity to review it and to present options for its implementation and
evaluation to the Advisory Committee at its next meeting.
FOLLOW-UP
|