Blood transfusion in Ireland: Perceptions of risk, a question of trust

Abstract

In Ireland over 1,000 people were infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and hepatitis C from blood transfusions and blood products they received between the late 1970s and early 1990s. This review discusses how these events have affected perceptions of blood transfusion with reference to theoretical perspectives on risk. This paper uses Douglas' cultural approach, Beck's ‘Risk Society’ approach and Social Amplification of Risk Theory to discuss the issues raised by blood transfusion. With regards to risk perceptions of blood transfusion, the issue of trust, in medicine and in technology, at a societal level emerged as a key concept. It is therefore argued that Social Amplification of Risk Theory offers the best understanding of events in Irish blood transfusion history and the most potential in modelling future events in blood transfusion.

Keywords:

• Blood transfusion
• risk theory
• trust

Notes

1 Taken from the report of the tribunal of inquiry into the Blood Transfusion Service Board: ‘Anti-D Immunoglobulin (Anti-D) is manufactured blood product used to prevent RH Haemolytic Disease. At the end of a pregnancy of a women with RH Negative blood whose foetus is RH Positive, separation of the foetus from the womb involves the leaving of RH Positive blood in the mother's system. She can then develop anti-bodies for the purpose of destroying the red cells, in the foetal blood, which remain in her system. These anti-bodies remain her blood system and if she again becomes pregnant with a rhesus positive foetus, the already established anti-bodies will cross the placenta and attack the red cells in the foetus and destroy them. This can lead to severe damage and possibly the death of the baby. The injection of Anti-D into the mother within 48 hours of the end of the pregnancy prevents the mother from developing these harmful anti-bodies’ (Government of Ireland 1997: 11).