Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 6, 1993 TAG: 9311060077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FRANKFURT, GERMANY LENGTH: Medium
Ellis Huber, head of the Berlin doctors' council, said the government had created "mass hysteria" with its advisory that everyone who had a blood transfusion since 1980 should undergo an AIDS test.
Tens of thousands of Germans have jammed telephone hot lines trying to get information.
German health officials on Friday added France, Italy and Britain to the list of countries that took plasma from a German company accused of distributing plasma without proper testing for the deadly virus.
Peter Struck, a leader of the opposition Social Democratic party, said blood supplies should be taken out of private hands and placed under state control, to stop "unscrupulous blood trade." He suggested blood supplies carry a government seal guaranteeing their purity.
The scandal erupted on Oct. 3 when the German government disclosed that 373 patients received HIV-contaminated blood. It has taken on near hysterical proportions since reports last week that the company UB Plasma sold contaminated blood products.
Huber said private businesses were willing to "walk over corpses" to boost profits.
Officials were trying to calm the public.
The Red Cross issued a statement Friday that said chances of catching AIDS through a blood transfusion were one in a million in Germany.
Nearly 10,000 people in Germany have AIDS, and about 5,000 have died from the disease.
U.S. military authorities, meanwhile, were starting to track down Americans who may have received tainted blood transfusions at German medical facilities.
Cmdr. Ron Morse, spokesman for the U.S. military's European Command in Stuttgart, said much of its maternity care is provided in German facilities. But he had no information on what the risks might have been for women delivering babies.
American military women also rely on German clinics for abortions because military hospitals refuse to perform them.
Norbert Weise, the Koblenz prosecutor leading the investigation against UB Plasma, said the company sold some of its products to other companies that then sold it abroad, including to Italy, France and Britain. Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Greece and Saudi Arabia also have bought UB Plasma supplies.
UB Plasma was shut down Oct. 28 after the government said the company sold blood products without testing each unit for the AIDS virus as required by law.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.