OUTRAGEOUS: American Red Cross accepting coronavirus-infected people as blood donors, claims coronavirus can’t be spread through blood

In the latest example of outrageously bad information that we’ll file under “self-serving ignorance,” the American Red Cross has publicly declared that asymptomatic coronavirus-infected individuals can give blood, even claiming they won’t be tested for the coronavirus when they do so.

It harkens back to the 1980s when the American Red Cross claimed HIV couldn’t be spread through blood and refused to test people for the HIV virus. (See more details, below.)

“There is no test to screen blood donations for the coronavirus and other respiratory viruses,” says the FAQ page of the American Red Cross blood donation website.

That same page goes on to make the bizarre claim that the coronavirus cannot be transmitted via blood, even though it’s obviously carried by the blood throughout the body. Via the American Red Cross:

It’s important to emphasize that there are no data or evidence that this coronavirus can be transmitted by blood transfusions, and there have been no reported cases of transfusion transmission for any respiratory virus including this coronavirus worldwide.

The American Red Cross is suffering a catastrophic decline in blood donations due to people staying home, so now they’re resorting to bizarre explanations to try to convince asymptomatic coronavirus carriers to give blood. (Question: Wouldn’t this potentially infect future patients who need the blood transfusions?)

Lest you think we are fabricating this insanity, here’s a screen shot from the American Red Cross website, RedCrossBlood.org:

DIRTY BLOOD: The coronavirus is widely known to infect the blood and the heart, yet the American Red Cross says it’s nothing to worry about

Despite the American Red Cross’s best efforts at telling us otherwise, the coronavirus doesn’t limit itself to lung tissue in the human body. It circulates throughout the body, infecting heart tissue, kidney tissue and even nervous tissue. As this article on HNGN explains, the coronavirus infects:

The lungs

The stomach

The circulatory system – “A 2014 study concluded that 92% of MERS patients had signs of the coronavirus outside the respiratory system.”

The liver

The kidneys

The way it reaches all these organs, of course, is through the blood. This Healthline.com article — a “mainstream” health site — also openly discusses how the coronavirus moves through the “heart and blood vessels,” infecting the stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys and more.

Ultimately, this means the American Red Cross is probably going to spread the coronavirus through blood transfusions. But because they desperately need more people to give blood, they are claiming the coronavirus can’t be spread through blood. But what else is new? The American Red Cross also refused to test blood for HIV during the AIDS crisis. As explained by Grunge.com:

During the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, one of the ways people could contract HIV and AIDS was through blood transfusions. Since the American Red Cross was a huge source of that blood, there was a demand for testing. So in 1983, according to the LA Times, they released a joint statement with the American Association of Blood Banks and the Council of Community Blood Centers, declaring, “The presently available medical and scientific evidence that AIDS can be spread by blood components remains incomplete.” Testing for HIV was rejected.

This was ridiculous, since the CDC had already announced their evidence that “the disease posed a serious threat to the blood supply.” And Red Cross internal memos from the time clearly show they knew “the available evidence strongly suggests that AIDS is transmissible” through blood. The organization simply didn’t want to do the tests because they thought they cost too much. Instead, they just banned all gay men from donating.

It seems that if you want truly bad information about the coronavirus, listen to the WHO, the CDC or the American Red Cross.

If you want the truth, read Pandemic.news.