Word: ub
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...began with simple arithmetic. German health officials tracing some unexplained cases of HIV infection examined the records of a small blood- supply company in Koblenz last month and noticed a startling discrepancy. UB Plasma had sold 7,000 units of blood since 1992 but had purchased only 2,500 kits to screen for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The conclusion: either the firm had failed to test thousands of units, or it had "pooled" units from multiple donors before conducting the tests, an illegal practice that reduces the chances of detecting HIV contamination...
Investigators discovered that after UB Plasma began running into financial trouble two years ago, technicians were told to pool units to save money on the $2 test kits. When the German manufacturer of the kits stopped deliveries because UB Plasma was not paying its bills, technicians switched to an unauthorized and even less reliable test. There was also chilling evidence that the firm may have distributed blood that was not screened...
When the extent of the violations became clear in October, the authorities moved quickly to shut down UB Plasma. They arrested the manager and three employees on charges of fraud and "negligent bodily harm." Last week they began tracing batches of company blood distributed to at least 88 hospitals and four companies in Germany and abroad. Three cases of HIV have been attributed to tainted blood, but a prominent pharmacologist, Ulrich Moebius, warned there may be more. "This," he said, "is only the tip of the iceberg...