I had to stop donating blood at blood drives almost 20 years ago because past usage of beef/pork insulin became a disqualification as a result of mad cow disease. (I had used beef/pork insulin in the 80’s and 90’s).
In the news, there’s severe blood shortages across the US, so I googled and the Red Cross web page says “Donors with diabetes who take any kind if insulin are eligible to donate as long as their diabetes is well controlled.” Although this doesn’t say anything about historic beef insulin usage, I’m still scratching my head if they’ve lifted the restriction. So I signed up for a donation time and will report back what I find out when they give me the more thorough questionairre on site!
Beef/pork was almost completely discontinued in the US in the late 1990s. May have been available by import for a while into the 21st century.
I’m kinda scratching my head, maybe Red Cross figures diabetics using beef/pork in the 80s are such a minor population that they don’t bother to list the exclusion on their web page anymore. Or maybe the exclusion is now obsolete.
Even if we are former beef and pork insulin users we can still give blood. The main issue was beef insulin and that was very rare in the US. It was all about mad cow but I do not recall a single case of transmission. If so perhaps in the UK. The main message is that we are able to give blood. The screening mechanism in my area does ask about type and insulin or not. A few months back I had someone take a blood sugar to make sure I was not too high or low. What is too high or low? The lady said 300+ and 40. I said don’t worry if I was either, I would not be here right now
When I went to a Red Cross blood donation site about 10 years ago, I answered a list of written question, one of which was whether I ever took any beef-derived insulin. I mostly took pork insulin in the '80s and '90s but that question triggered a memory of using some beef insulin during that period. Answering “yes” to that question disqualified me from donating.
I concluded that this was a settled issue but I would happily return to donating blood if this policy is now changed.
As far as I know there is no diagnostic test for mad cow disease. It can also lay dormant for decades. I don’t know why it seems to have disappeared from the news.
If the Red Cross has no way to screen the blood for it, they will screen large groups of potentially risky groups.
Gay men are still not allowed to donate blood, and it does ent matter that they can test for HIV. It was just a hold over from when they couldn’t test. Now a gay man can donate but only if he has been celibate for a year. Which is kind of laughable.
But still they are trying to protect the public, they probably err on the side of caution more than they needed.
I don’t know how old you are, but in the 80s people were getting HIV from transfusions. Other hemophiliacs were also getting it because factor 8 is extracted from human blood and given to hemophiliacs.
There was a belief that only gay men had it, back then so a rule was created. Same situation with beef insulin users.
They decided the risk is too great. If that rule was changed recently I’m surprised because it hasn’t been that long since mad cow became a problem.
Many of us who were young men in the late 80’s and 90’s remember the extreme needle phobia and the immediate assumption (even by pharmacists and health care professionals) that if we were asking for syringes we were HIV-infected illegal drug users. It probably didn’t help that I had shaggy hair and ripped jeans either.
Wow is it so much easier to be carrying a syringe in public or at school or at work, now that I have a buzzcut and all my hair is grey.
I know this is getting off topic, but working in health care for so long, I learned to be able to detect when someone was on the early hiv drugs.
They would cause a kind of lipo distrophy that distorts facial features slightly.
I can still see it in some people, but the newer drugs have less intense effect.
Not sure about the newly diagnosed because I don’t work with patients anymore.
I don’t think I can look at a person and know he or she is diabetic and using insulin though, unless I see a tube hanging off him or an insulin pen in her pocket.
I have always known that I couldn’t donate blood, because of having diabetes, but I must have forgotten that it was because of taking beef insulin. I took beef/pork insulin for decades. Thanks Tim for posting this topic, I am always pleased to learn something from this group.
So, I guess now I can’t donate because I don’t weigh enough. I had no idea that only a relatively small percentage of the population can donate.
I didn’t even know we were allowed to donate now, beef insulin or not. I got turned away from a blood drive in the early 2000s just because I was Type 1. No discussion of what type of insulin ever happened. I asked outside the truck, and got turned away without even filling out the paperwork. I assumed it was either immediate disqualification for using syringes, or just the assumption that I wasn’t healthy enough to donate.
I also used a version of beef insulin in 1975. However, as I said in my area at least that stricture no longer applies. I suspect it is because insulin was found to not transmit mad cow, but I do not know for certain.
I ,iced in the UK through the mad cow hysteria. The danger came from the usage of spinal and brain tissue in mechanically recovered meat which was mainly, but not exclusively, used in animal feeds including dog and cat food. Some found it’s way into the type of meat used in the cheap and nasty value burgers sold in discount shops. To date fewer than 200 people have died from CJD and there is no real way of determining what caused their death but supposition is that some may have died from eating contaminated meat. Pancreas were not responsible for transmission of the prions, they are limited to brain and nerve tissue. The Red Cross was likely being cautious, particularly given the transmission of haemophilia, hepatitis and AIDS through blood transfusions, particularly because much of the supply in the States is purchased from drug addicts and other less healthy people though not all of it is.
I work for a pharma that uses human blood to make therapeutic drugs.
I know that it’s an old an repeated story that drug addicts are donating blood for drug money, however that is not true.
The blood donations are all tested for kidney and liver function as well as screening for known diseases and all drugs.
The reason they can test all drugs is that it is tested by a mass detector which can determine what drugs are ina a sample.
It isn’t likely a person could quit drugs long enough to void them from their bodies just to get enough money to buy more drugs.
The truth is most blood donations to the res cross come from average everyday people who want to help.
Donations for research and therapeutic drug applications are paid for their donation and
Therefore attract people who are lower income. They are still screened for disease and drugs.
It’s just an old wives tale taht will just not go away
Phil, unless you were specifically prescribed “pork only” (possibly as a result of an allergy), you were almost certainly taking a mix of beef/pork all through the 70’s and 80’s. Pre-1990 if I asked for R or N insulin they would sometimes ask me if it had to be pork-only but usually they just handed me the beef/pork. Starting about 1990 we had to have a discussion about Humulin vs Beef/Pork (and I would always choose Beef/Pork because it was the cheapest, but pharmacies were already cutting back on stocking the animal-derived insulins), then in late 90’s Beef/Pork was pretty much just discontinued.
I was simply told that I had to switch to “human” insulin, and didn’t question why. Had recently started insulin pump and thought it must be better choice for pumps.
I went from Humulin to purified pork and back to Humulin.
Now on Humalog
My doctor switched me off Humulin because I had no hypo awareness, not sure it helped at all, but after I got in good control, my hypo awareness returned
