Day 16.102: No excuse for the other 16 years

Since we moved to the US, we've been aware that being blood donors is not an option for us here. Thanks to rules around the fact that we lived in the UK during the BSE years and related concerns about vCJD, the US was not interested in our blood.

Early this year the ban was lifted but we only discovered about it this week and and managed to successfully donate blood today.

In the process, we also found our previous UK donor records and discovered that we last gave blood at the same place on the same day. We had met but did not know each other well at the time so it is certainly a coincidence.

As for why we hadn't given blood during the following 16 years before we left the UK, I can't say.