Hello, I am also just now going through these issues about the biosafety with regard to sorting -- in preparation for the purchase and siting of a new sorter in our facility. When I suggested to my users that human samples for sorting should all be tested in advance for Hep and HIV, they, essentially, said that this would not be advisable/possible for the following reasons. 1) Timing would be difficult 2) It would be expensive 3) It would bring up ethical issues 4) Negative tests for a few specific pathogens would not rule out recent exposure of the donor to those pathogens and/or positivity to all the other untested pathogens. I have absolutely no sympathy for the first three excuses. But, the fourth excuse does have some validity. If we realize that negative results for a few pathogens does not really mean that a sample is safe, then we must treat all samples with high precaution. And, if we need to treat all samples with high precaution, then it can be argued that there is no real point in testing (and it could lead to false security). What are your thoughts? Alice Alice L. Givan, Director Englert Cell Analysis Laboratory of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center Dartmouth Medical School Lebanon, NH 03756 USA tel 603-650-7661 fax 603-6540-6130 givan@dartmouth.edu www.dartmouth.edu/~celllabReceived on Mon Apr 19 12:58:00 2004
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