The Food and Drug Administration watches all medical and food entities vigilantly, making sure that they discover any dangerous or health-risking activity and shut it down immediately. One are of medicine that needs to be incredible clean and sterile is the blood banks. If a blood bank is not kept perfectly clean and organized, it can put donors, workers, and the recipients of the donated blood at serious risk. Unorganized vials may get mixed up and a patient could receive the wrong blood type into his or her system. This can create horrible problems and even death in the future. That’s why when the FDA discovered that a South Florida blood bank wasn’t following safety protocol they took immediate action to confront them.

Workers at the Community Blood Centers of Florida failed to store the red blood cells at the right temperature. This can cause serious chemical imbalances and create a dangerous situation for the recipient of the platelets. Workers at the center also allegedly retrieved a bag of platelets out of a trash can to fulfill an order. The platelets had been in the bottom of the trash bin for hours, meaning that they were not store at a correct temperature or in sanitary conditions. As if this wasn’t enough, the blood bank also mixed up their donor records by blood type, so that they weren’t sure which donors were giving which type of blood.

If this translated to the vials, then a person with one blood type could be issued the wrong blood in a transfusion. A patient who receives the wrong type of blood will have an immediate allergic reaction that will manifest itself within 15 minutes. When a person receives the wrong blood type, nurses normally administer Benadryl to soften the allergic reaction and then turn off the blood transfusion. If dealt with swiftly, a patient can recover. Nurses are required to watch their patients throughout a blood transfusion for this reason. If they fail to pay attention and catch the mistake, it can be horrific and deadly. Also, weaker patients may not be able to handle the allergic reactions and may become ill or die.

With people’s lives at risk, it’s no wonder that the FDA has been carefully watching blood banks all across America to make sure that they are practicing clean, safe, reliable blood storage and collections’ habits. Among all of the offenses already mentioned, the South Florida Blood Bank also waited 87 days to call a donor and inform him that he had tested HIV positive. The FDA is still completing their investigation with the blood bank and trying to determine what penalties they should impose. The blood bank has not denied the allegations against them, and says that the company has moved quickly to clean up the situation since the issue came to light. They have replaced the center’s leadership and have implemented safety councils to help regulate the way that the blood is handled within the bank.

Susan Forbes, the chief marketing and communications officer for OneBlood says that the company is making long-term changes that will ensure that they are practicing corrective safety measures and actions. They say that the leadership changes that were made as a result of the FDA’s findings should be able to fix all problems. The Florida blood centers have been under scrutiny for the past few years after certain executives were rumored to receive over $500,000 a year in payment. The executives were selling the blood out of state and performing other controversial practices in order to get the money they wanted. If you have been harmed by medical negligence due to a blood bank or a hospital’s negligence during a blood transfusion, then talk to a personal injury attorney today to seek damages!