Word: donor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Being your own donor...
Though donations by Americans have picked up in the past few years, the supply of blood barely keeps up with the demand. Use of donor blood rose 76% between 1971 and 1979 and may go higher if surgery increases as the population ages...
...above the patient's head and transfused by gravity. Autotransfusion is especially suitable where blood loss is great, as in trauma patients or those undergoing cardiac or orthopedic surgery. At Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, where autotransfusion is used in all heart operations, the need for donor blood in such surgery dropped 60% last year. Using the patient's own blood eliminates the possibility that his blood type will be mismatched and reduces his chances of contracting blood-borne diseases. Says Jerome Hauer, a blood specialist at Beth Israel: "The patient gets the best blood...
Though these techniques are once again popular, their full impact on blood conservation is yet to be assessed. But they are already of lifesaving importance to Jehovah's Witnesses, whose faith forbids transfusions of donor blood...
Meanwhile, the British public is frightened. London Photographer Sally Greenhill expressed a common reaction to the broadcast: "I immediately tore up my organ donor card." In the four weeks after the telecast, the number of kidney transplants fell by a quarter, but is now beginning to increase again. British doctors hope the public will finally be reassured in February, when they state their case in a special 90-minute program...