![vestige of the past vestige of the past](https://whyy.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/AP_19088521003795-768x512.jpg)
The risk of an infected blood product entering the blood pool is now so small that it cannot be measured directly but must instead be extrapolated from mathematical models. Current testing methods used to screen for HIV in blood products have sensitivities and specificities upwards of 99%. Since then, the context for HIV and affected populations has changed substantially. At the time HIV was largely unknown, testing methods were poor, and the medical and general population were in a state of veritable panic. These policies were put in place in the 1980s by the Canadian Red Cross (predecessor to the Canadian Blood Services and Héma-Quebec) to protect the population during the rise of the HIV epidemic. In 2013, this was modified to a five-year deferral since the last sexual encounter. In 1983, the Canadian Red Cross instituted a lifetime blood donation ban for any man who had engaged in sexual contact with another man. Yet the policies that govern how we collect donated blood remain woefully antiquated. We use it to advance scientific knowledge in the research lab. We use it to treat patients with sickle cell disease on the medical wards. We use blood to bring back patients from the brink of death in the operating room. We are four fresh and eager medical students just beginning clerkship, but we can already attest to the importance of blood in medicine. Maxime Billick, Jeremy Cygler, Gabriel Devlin and Bellal Jubran are all third year medical students at McGill University