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Courtney Lawrence: It’s Critical That as Blood Donor Eligibility Criteria Evolves, We Ensure the U.S. Blood Supply for Patients Remains Safe!
Courtney Lawrence/LinkedIn
Oct 9, 2025, 06:59

Courtney Lawrence: It’s Critical That as Blood Donor Eligibility Criteria Evolves, We Ensure the U.S. Blood Supply for Patients Remains Safe!

Courtney Lawrence, Divisional Chief Medical Officer at the American Red Cross, shared on LinkedIn:

”It’s critical that as blood donor eligibility criteria evolves, we sensure the U.S. blood supply for patients remains safe!

With supporting data from the experiences of other countries and ongoing studies of specific donor subpopulations, the FDA reduced the deferral period for blood donors with specific higher risk behaviors from 12 months to 3 months in 2020.

(In 2023, another huge stride was made in moving to Individualized Donor Assessment, replacing blanket deferrals based on gender and sexual orientation with evidence-based individual assessments of risks).

‘Despite reducing donor deferral periods for many infectious risk behaviors, HIV and HBV prevalence were stable, while HCV prevalence declined over 8 years.

Either slight or significant declines occurred from the pre-3M to 3M period for all agents.

Thus, changes in policy did not adversely impact the current safety of the blood supply with respect to the major infectious disease agents.’

Congratulations to the science teams from American Red Cross’s Transfusion Safety and Surveillance, Vitalant, OneBlood, New York Blood Center and the FDA on their collaborative publication in AABB Transfusion!”

Courtney Lawrence: It's Critical That as Blood Donor Eligibility Criteria Evolves, We Ensure the U.S. Blood Supply for Patients Remains Safe!

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