Artificial blood and the National Blood Policy

Artificial blood will become important to the extent that it is safer, more effective, more economical, and more readily available than natural substances. If physicians would accept blood substitutes, their use might help to eliminate prevailing shortages of blood and increasing needs for plasma. The high demand for albumin, one of the safest biologics known, is pushing the requirement for plasma to higher levels every year. The albumin situation illustrates both the value placed on hemotherapeutic agents of proven safety and the problem of mobilizing sufficient blood resources for their production. The solutions to this problem and others addressed by the National Blood Policy will involve both scientific efforts and improvements in the operation and organization of blood service systems. Thus, the search for blood and plasma substitutes must be viewed as just one of a set of management and scientific approaches to meeting the need for safe, effective hemotherapuetic agents.