Originally published September 26 2005
Donate blood twice a year to help with future disasters
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
In the wake of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, many of us are left wondering how we can be more prepared for such a disaster. Experts at the American Red Cross say that one way to increase our nation's preparedness is to give blood twice a year.
People looking for some way to help with national preparedness in the wake of Hurricane Katrina should consider making blood donations twice a year -- if not more often, blood bank directors say.
Blood donations to the American Red Cross are up 10 percent since the Gulf Coast catastrophe, similar to what happened after the 9/11 terror attacks, and the situation has not taxed the nation's blood supply.
Nevertheless, that pool is often smaller than what public health experts would like, as demand outpaces supply.
The Penn-Jersey region of American Red Cross Blood Services has in recent years been forced to "import" about one-third of the blood it supplies to hospitals across New Jersey and in the Philadelphia area.
Type O blood, the "universal donor," can be transfused with any other blood type and is essential to emergency treatments when there's no time to type recipients' blood.
Transfusions are also needed to treat cancer and sickle cell disease patients, as well as those undergoing major surgeries.
Blood supplies traditionally dwindle in the summer, because so many regular donors are students.
People who have lived for five years in Europe since 1980 or three months in Britain before 1996 are no longer eligible to donate because of concerns about the transmission of Mad Cow disease.
In Wisconsin this summer, donors got a shot at winning Rolling Stones concert tickets, vacations, iPods, even a hybrid automobile.
To make up its deficit, Penn-Jersey gets overnight shipments of blood from the other 34 Red Cross blood centers across the country, but that, too, can get dicey at times.
Hurricane Isabel disrupted those shipments two years ago, for a time leaving Penn-Jersey Red Cross with just an eight-hour supply of blood.
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