Blood donors needed: Strictly no pilots
I’d always given blood, from a young age and didn’t see how being a pilot would change that.
I’m intelligent enough to know that you don’t donate blood shortly before flying several trusting passengers to their destination. The after effects of donating blood are rare, but you don’t want to take chances like that.
Anyway, I found out that pilots aren’t allowed to donate blood quite by accident.
About ten years ago I had a couple of weeks leave, so decided to take the opportunity to donate some of the red stuff. My blood was tested and found to be acceptable, so I lay back on the couch and waited for the needle. Whilst chatting to the nurses, as I waited, I happened to mention I was a pilot.
Well that was that, no more donating blood for me. I was escorted from the room, feeling a little embarrassed – I sensed the other donors had me down as HIV positive or worse.
Despite my assurances that I wouldn’t be flying for two whole weeks, they didn’t want my blood.
Well, as it happens, I’m now glad I didn’t donate blood on that day and haven’t ever since – because in 2006 , a year after I’d stopped flying, my blood and fat were tested by a research scientist.
He also tested 20 other pilots and found highly abnormal amounts of volatile organic compounds in all of us. He also found traces of organophosphates in our fat.
Over the next two years I had repeated tests, each time the level of chemicals in my blood and fat got less and less. Today, four years after I stopped flying, they are all but gone.
So, it turns out that stopping (even sensible!) pilots from donating blood is no bad thing – but for different reasons than the blood donating centres believe. After all, given the choice, who would want a noxious cocktail of chemicals in their body?
Tags: blood donation, pilots, volatile organic compounds
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