Testing in the years ahead: new pressures and new concerns

In the past, testing by blood banks was intended primarily to ensure product quality or donor safety or to meet existing regulations. As a result of recent pressures, especially the AIDS epidemic, additional reasons to test have become evident. Although some of these reasons are not easy to accept, it is appropriate to review them and to evaluate a new approach to reaching blood bank decisions that have public policy implications. It is suggested that The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences sponsor a new and permanent structure for this purpose.