Memorial Blood Centers
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       Twin Cities (651) 332-7000   Northland (218) 723-8080

 

Guidelines and Restrictions

Our trained staff will help determine your eligibility – please call Memorial Blood Centers for more information.

Medical Conditions

  • Simple colds or flu: must feel well for three days.
  • Tooth extractions and dental surgery: wait 72 hours.
  • Heart/Lung: irregular pulse, chest pain or symptoms of lung disease will be evaluated. May be eligible one year after heart surgery or heart attack.
  • Diabetes: eligible if controlled by diet and/or medication and no symptoms.
  • Cancers: skin cancer (basal cell, squamous cell) or in-situ cervical cancer—accept when excised and healed.
    Lymphoma, leukemia or Hodgkin’s—indefinite deferral.
    Other cancers—may be eligible one year after all treatment is completed. 
  • Ulcers: accept if pain free.
  • Lyme disease: defer one year after recovery.

Medications

  • Prospective donors must know the name of any medication they are taking.
  • Blood pressure medications: accept (if BP 180/100 or less).
  • Oral antibiotics: wait 24 hours after last dose.
  • Antibiotics for acne: accept.
  • IM or IV antibiotics: Wait one week after last dose.

Surgery

  • Accept if feels well, resumed full activities and released from doctor’s care.
  • Accept if 12 months after a transfusion (even if their own blood).

Pregnancy

  • Accept six weeks after any pregnancy.
  • Breast-feeding: accept.

HIV/AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)

  • People who are at risk for exposure to HIV/AIDS are asked to defer themselves.
  • Anyone who has AIDS or one of the signs or symptoms of AIDS will be deferred.
  • Persons with clinical or laboratory evidence of infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV - the virus that causes AIDS) will be deferred.
  • Men who have ever had sex with another male even one time since 1977 will be deferred.
  • Men and women who have engaged in sex for money or drugs since 1977.
  • Individuals who have had sex with anybody meeting the above descriptions in the past 12 months will be deferred.

 

Hepatitis

  • Blood or body fluids on mucous membrane, open wound or non-intact skin: defer 12 months.
  • Hepatitis or jaundice after the 11th birthday: indefinitely defer.
  • Acupuncture, ear piercing or electrolysis: accept if disposable needle used. Otherwise defer 12 months.
  • Tattoo or skin piercing: defer 12 months.
  • Syphilis/gonorrhea: defer for 12 months after treatment.
  • Incarcerated (jailed) for more than 72 hours: defer 12 months.

Immunizations

  • Smallpox: defer three months
  • MMR (Measles, mumps, rubella), Chicken Pox: defer one month.
  • Oral polio, measles (rubeola), mumps, yellow fever, oral typhoid: defer two weeks.
  • Hepatitis B: defer one day.
  • Tetanus/diphtheria, hepatitis A, influenza: accept if symptom free.
  • Gamma globulin for travel (not recent exposure to hepatitis): accept.

Travel/Malaria/vCJD

  • Travel to areas endemic for malaria: defer one year after return.
  • Malaria infection: defer three years after becoming asymptomatic.
  • Residence in endemic area: defer three years.
  • Criteria may be different for some countries.
  • Spending time that adds up to three months or more in the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar or the Falkland Islands) from 1980-1996 is cause for deferral.
  • Spending time that adds up to six months or more on military bases in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Italy or Greece from 1980-1996 is cause for deferral.
  • Spending time that adds up to five years or more in Europe from 1980 to the present time is cause for deferral.
  • Travel to Iraq: defer one year after return.

 
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