Why the urge to tap a vein?
Two main reasons.
One is that in a world full of paralysing terror - flying, enclosed spaces, pigeons - a fear of needles is one of the few phobias I seem to have escaped.
Giving blood is a breeze, an easy way to achieve that warm glow you get from performing a valuable public service.
The other, slightly more important reason, is that our daughter was born extremely prematurely and had 11 blood transfusions to help keep her alive. That she is a healthy 12-year-old now is in large part due to strangers swapping a pint of their blood for a cup of tea and a biscuit. It's impossible to emerge from an extended stay in intensive care without a profound understanding of the importance of topping up this life-saving reservoir.
Except I can't. Not in this country. Because anybody who lived in the UK for six months or more between 1980 and 1996 is banned from giving blood in New Zealand in a rule designed to prevent the spread of CJD, the human form of mad cow disease.
On one level this is understandable, because CJD has a long incubation period and there's no test to determine whether a blood donor is infected. But on the level of common sense, it has to be remembered that by some estimates the predicted CJD epidemic should have killed 100,000 people by now. It hasn't.
There's also the small point that I'm a vegetarian who never ate meat in the UK. Seeing as the whole mad cow hysteria stemmed from fears of infected meat entering the food chain, you would think that somebody who spent less than six months in the UK but ate a few burgers might pose a slightly greater risk.
I emailed the NZ Blood Service last year to explain my position and plead for the chance to give blood. It explained that it hated to turn down willing donors but pointed out New Zealand was not the only country with such a ban in place, that there could be a "second wave" of CJD infections and that "vegetarianism has different meanings to different people".
It's hard to argue with a cautious approach but surely in times of need - and NZ Blood only last week issued an urgent call for donors - it's prudent to take a fresh look at this policy.
Firstly, it has to be asked how the UK survives for blood supplies when a huge proportion of its adult population falls into the at-risk classification. There are rules in place such as banning donations of people with a family member who has had CJD but a blanket ban would be simply unworkable.
Secondly, New Zealand must be the country with the highest proportion of its citizens to have lived in the UK between 1980 and 1996. With tens of thousands of Kiwis likely affected by the rule, out of a population of four million, this country must be a special case. Just how many donors are we missing out on?
I've seen first-hand that to give blood is to give the gift of life.
C'mon NZ Blood. Please let me.
- Sean Flaherty is the Otago Daily Times online editor.
