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The envelope from the Bonfils Blood Center was addressed to her husband, but Valerie Sportsman opened it. The letter inside said that Dennis Sportsman had a disease, one that apparently could be contracted through drugs or sex. Valerie knew her husband didn’t use drugs, so that meant…
Dennis Sportsman arrived home to an angry wife who was certain he was having an affair. He managed to calm her fears, but his own surged when he read that he had a disease he’d never heard of.
Sportsman has given blood since he was a kid, often twice a year. The blood banks are always exceptionally happy to see him; he’s what they call a “double-bagger”–an unusual donor who can safely give twice as much blood as most people.
Last September 23, Sportsman gave blood at Bonfils. The letter from Dr. W.C. Dickey, the center’s CEO, arrived the following Friday. It said Sportsman had tested positive for antibodies that “may indicate recent or past infection” with the hepatitis C virus.
“The test which we use is a screening test and we recognize that there may be a certain number of false positive results,” the letter continued. “A confirmatory test has recently been licensed by the FDA, and would be available through your private source of medical care.”
After noting that Sportsman’s name had been “placed on a confidential deferral list,” the letter informed him he was not to give blood again. “I realize that this letter may raise questions that you need to have answered,” the missive concluded. “If you want to discuss the finding or need information about being re-tested please call Marilyn Shahan, RN.”
After rushing to his doctor for a “confirmatory” test, Sportsman called Nurse Shahan. It turned out she had died at least a week before Dickey’s letter was mailed.
Within a few days, Sportsman’s private physician reported that his antibody test was negative. Sportsman returned to Bonfils for a second blood test–which again came back positive. If he wanted a more accurate, and expensive, test, staffers told him, he would have to pay for it himself. But after Sportsman “pitched a bitch” in the Bonfils’ crowded lobby, he says, the center agreed to do the test for free.
On October 20, a Bonfils official called Sportsman and told him the confirmatory test had come back negative. He didn’t have the hep C virus. His name, however, was still on the “deferral list” of those who couldn’t give blood–and had also been added to a nationwide computer database.
Alarmed, Sportsman wrote to Dickey demanding all written and computer records at Bonfils that pertained to him. “Please note, I have no interest in receiving names of people who benefited from my donations,” he said. “My sole interest is in the file contents as they relate to me.”
Specifically, Sportsman says, as they related not only to his ability to donate blood, but also to get insurance or even employment if a prospective boss believed he had an infectious disease. He doesn’t trust computer files to stay confidential.
That letter crossed in the mail with another missive from Dickey, which confirmed that the more accurate test had come back negative. “This finding indicates that the initial screening test was a false positive,” he wrote Sportsman. “Because you tested repeat reactive for hepatitis C antibody…on two different occasions we must ask that you not donate blood in the future in accordance with Food and Drug Administration regulations.” Dickey then reiterated that Sportsman’s name would be placed on a deferral list. “This list is a Bonfils only list,” he added, “and is not shared with any other entity except the State Health Department, where we are required by law to do so.”
Hepatitis C is a disease that should be reported, agrees John Pape, an epidemiologist with the state health department. If the results of a confirmatory test are negative, though, his department considers it a non-case. “There’s no reason to do anything with it,” Pape says.
Sportsman’s name still appears on Bonfils’s deferral list, however. The FDA requires that anybody who tests positive for hepatitis C twice be given a permanent deferral status, Dickey explains, even if the confirmatory test is negative. “I have no doubt in my mind that Mr. Sportsman does not have hepatitis C,” Dickey says. “Scientifically, we may even be able to prove that Mr. Sportsman and others like him do not have hepatitis C. But why, from a public-health point, should we go through that effort and expense when we can go to donors who do not test positive?”
Not that Sportsman is interested in donating blood at Bonfils again. “I just want to have false information removed from computer files,” he says. “Is that so tough?
