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An inventory of concerns behind blood safety policies in five Western countries.
- Source :
- Transfusion; Dec2015, Vol. 55 Issue 12, p2816-2825, 10p, 1 Black and White Photograph, 6 Charts
- Publication Year :
- 2015
-
Abstract
- <bold>Background: </bold>The availability of costly safety measures against transfusion-transmissible infections forces Western countries to confront difficult ethical questions. How to decide about implementing such measures? When are such decisions justified? As a preliminary to addressing these questions, we assessed which concerns shape actual donor blood safety policymaking in five Western countries.<bold>Study Design and Methods: </bold>Our qualitative study involved determining which issues had been discussed in advisory committee meetings and capturing these issues in general categories. Appropriate documents were identified in collaboration with local decision-making experts in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The introduction of hepatitis B virus nucleic acid testing and selected measures against variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, West Nile virus, and Q-fever were chosen as cases representing decision-making on safety measures with high costs and low or uncertain added safety.<bold>Results: </bold>A broad inventory of concerns was established, including: 1) nine categories of advantages and disadvantages of candidate safety policies; 2) six kinds of difficulties in assessing risks and forecasting the effects of safety policies; 3) 13 decision-making principles; and 4) six kinds of practical barriers hampering the translation of candidate policies into decisions.<bold>Conclusion: </bold>Blood safety policymaking involves a wide variety of competing concerns, and approaches to reconcile these considerations are themselves contested. Developing a systematic decision-making approach requires ethical reflection on, among others, reasonable costs of safety and the value of transparency in public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00411132
- Volume :
- 55
- Issue :
- 12
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Transfusion
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 112050839
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/trf.13254