“I Thought a Blood Transfusion Was Life, Not Death”

THOSE words were uttered by Sal Cirella, father of a hepatitis victim, on the U.S. television program 20/20 on December 11, 1986. His daughter Tracy was given a transfusion as “hospital policy,” even though it was against the parents’ wishes. (Incidentally, they were not Jehovah’s Witnesses, who refuse transfusions for religious reasons.) She contracted hepatitis, and her life was saved only by a liver transplant.

Tracy was attacked by a form of hepatitis known as non-A/​non-B hepatitis. This same TV program reported: “Over 190,000 Americans contract it in transfusions every year. It causes permanent liver damage or kills close to 10,000 people a year. It almost killed Tracy.”

A surgeon who has operated without blood in 14,000 cases also stated: “I see people notoriously transfusing people that don’t need it at all, and basically covering their own mistakes of sloppiness, if nothing else, by using blood transfusions. And I think that’s totally unacceptable.” Another doctor, a former U.S. Food and Drug Administration official, stated: “I believe all blood products are overused. I think there’s adequate evidence to substantiate that. The behavior that has to be changed is physicians’ behavior, what they order for a patient. And they order too much blood.”