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Doctors who want to do a blood test on children to see if they have a bacterial infection should not take the blood from an intravenous catheter. The blood may be contaminated with bacteria from the surface of the skin, which would give a false-positive result. This was the conclusion of a study of 4,108 children.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2009.10.018 Byline: Sue Paterson, Sooyeun Lee, Rosa Cordero Keywords: Cocaine; Benzoylecgonine; Hair analysis; Blood contamination Abstract: In post-mortem work, blood is a potential source of external contamination of hair. The present study was carried out to investigate the amount of drug absorbed into hair which has been contaminated with blood containing either cocaine or BE. Solutions were prepared containing 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5 and 3.0[mu]g/mL of either cocaine or BE in human blood. Samples of approximately 3.2g of drug-free hair were contaminated by soaking in the blood solutions for 5min. They were then removed and left at room temperature. Approximately 0.5g of hair was collected from each of the blood soaked hair samples at 6h, 1, 2, 4 and 7 days after contamination. As each hair sample was collected it was shampoo-washed to prevent further drug absorption. Hair samples were analysed in triplicate using a fully validated method described previously. EME and cocaethylene were also measured in order to find out if cocaine or BE was breaking down to these compounds. Both cocaine and BE were absorbed into hair in significant concentrations when the concentration in the blood was 0.5[mu]g/mL or greater; cocaine was more readily absorbed than BE. Cocaine broke down to EME (LOQ) and BE ( Author Affiliation: Toxicology Unit, Imperial College London, St Dunstan's Road, London W6 8RP, United Kingdom Article History: Received 13 May 2009; Revised 2 October 2009; Accepted 17 October 2009

Platelets, which are important in clotting, are the only blood product that can be stored at room temperature. They are susceptible to bacterial infection, which can cause severe illness and death if the contaminated platelets are used for transfusions. The incidence of such contaminated transfusions increased soon after the Food and Drug Administration extended the allowable storage time to seven days, causing the agency to return its policy soon afterwards to the previous maximum storage time of five days. Septic transfusion reactions have decreased since then, but still occur at a fairly high rate. This study examined such reactions in one institution to see how their incidence might be further reduced. All patients receiving transfusions at a cancer center were monitored over a 42-month period. All septic reactions to platelet transfusion were identified and analyzed. Out of 4,200 transfusions during the study period, there were seven septic reactions to platelet transfusions. All seven patients were taking antibiotics effective against the bacteria. Fever occurred soon after the transfusions were given. Four of the seven platelet transfusions were from sources that had been stored five days. The incidence of septic reactions was five times higher for platelets stored five days than for those stored four or fewer days. Examination of the donors of the platelets revealed they were not infected, suggesting that contamination occurred during the puncturing of the skin with the needle or elsewhere in the donation process. These results indicate that septic reactions to platelet transfusion could further be reduced by reducing the allowable storage time to four days. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Heparin contamination in blood samples can lead to false prolongation of routine coagulation tests: activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) and, to a lesser extent, prothrombin time (PT). Such contamination commonly [...], * Context.--Heparin contamination in blood samples may cause false prolongation of activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) and prothrombin time results. Polybrene can neutralize heparin, but it affects coagulation by itself. Objectives.--To determine the optimal concentration of polybrene to neutralize heparin, to determine the suitable sequence of reagents for the neutralization method performed on the analyzer at the same time as prothrombin time and aPTT testing, and to detect the heparin contamination in blood samples for coagulation tests in our hospital using this method. Design.--Various concentrations of heparin were added to 10 normal and 76 abnormal plasma samples to study the efficacy of polybrene. Two programs of reagent sequencing for aPTT with polybrene performed on the analyzer were tested. Samples suspected of heparin contamination according to our criteria were selected for neutralization during a 3-month period. Results.--The optimal final concentration of polybrene was 25 µg/mL. Polybrene should be added after the aPTT reagent to minimize its interference effect. Even though results of prothrombin time and aPTT after neutralization did not equal those before the spike of heparin, the differences might not be clinically significant. Eighty-one of 4921 samples (1.6%) were selected for aPTT with the neutralization method, and the detection rate of heparin contamination was 84% (68 of 81), giving an overall incidence of 1.4% (68 of 4921). Conclusions.--This method is inexpensive and can be performed rapidly with prothrombin time and aPTT on the automated analyzer, which makes it easy to practice with no need for extra plasma volumes. (Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2013;137:1641-1647; doi: 10.5858/arpa.2012-0599-OA)

Ten patients receiving a blood transfusion between 1991 and 1996 became ill with Yersinia enterocolitica infection. These can be added to the 11 cases reported between 1985 and 1991. Eight of the ten patients became ill within 12 hours of the transfusion. Five died between 2.5 hours and 6 days after the transfusion. Blood samples from five of the patients contained Yersinia toxins and the bacterium itself was isolated from the blood of seven patients. Blood samples from seven of the donors also tested positive for Yersinia enterocolitica. Five of the donors reported having diarrhea after the donation.

Michel Garretta and Jean-Paul Allain were certainly guilty of not stopping the distribution of HIV-contaminated blood in 1984 and 1985, but Parisian courts did not raise the question of what people or institution pressured the two to keep silent. The trials confirmed the duty of knowledgeable people to blow the whistle when they see wrongdoing, but ignored the consequences to those individuals. Government influence was a large part of the conspiracy of silence.

The indictment of a French AIDS epidemiologist, Jean-Baptiste Brunet, has drawn attention toward the contamination of the French blood supply with HIV viruses. He suggested an examination of the contaminated haemophiliacs through blood screening and collection of poisoned blood earlier but was ignored. The French Supreme Court of Appeals can survey the malfunctions in the health care system concerning the contaminated blood issue but there are doubts regarding the legal community's ability to bring justice to the issue.

Jean-Pierre Allain and Michel Garretta lost their appeals in Jul 1993 against four-year prison sentences. In 1992 the two former officials of the French National Center for Blood Transfusion were convicted of knowingly allowing the center to supply HIV-contaminated blood to hemophiliacs when treated blood was available. The center decided to let its stocks of tainted blood run out before importing heat-purified blood from abroad.