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Blood Feud
Israel's Ethiopians aren't mollified by the
investigation into the dumping of the
community's blood donations.
LARRY DERFNER ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
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srael thought it had put to rest
the bitter controversy over
Ethiopian immigrant blood
donations, but the Ethiopians
weren't mollified at all.
Last January some 10,000
Ethiopian immigrants held a vi-
olent demonstration in
Jerusalem after it was revealed
that Magen David Adom (Israel's
Red Cross) had been disposing of
Ethiopian blood donations be-
cause of the high incidence of
HIV-infection in the community.
Then-Prime Minister Shimon
Peres appointed a commission to
investigate the affair
On Sunday the commission,
headed by former President
Yitzhak Navon, came out with
its conclusions:
* The policy against using
Ethiopian immigrants' blood
should have also applied to Is-
raelis who'd spent time in other
high-risk countries;
* MDA's policy should not
have been hidden from Ethiopi-
an blood donors; and
* The problem with the poli-
cy had not been racism, but bad
judgment.
Knesset Member Adissu Mes-
sele, leader of the Ethiopian im-
migrant community, said the
panel's conclusions and recom-
mendations were "superficial and
intended as a cover-up."
For the Ethiopians, he said,
the Navon Commission's findings
had changed nothing.
"A stigma has been left on the
Ethiopian immigrant communi-
ty, and 60,000 Ethiopian immi-
grants are seen as AIDS carriers
as a result of the blood donations
affair," Mr. Messele said at a
news conference. "Our little chil-
dren have been going through
hell. An [Ethiopian] child who
gets injured in kindergarten can't
expect his teacher to come take
care of his bleeding wound."
In defending its blood-dump-
ing policy, MDA had argued that
while the Israeli population as a
whole showed a .02 percent inci-
dence of HIV-infection, Ethiopi-
an immigrants showed a .86
percent incidence 43 times as
high as normal. The Navon Com-
mission agreed that the disposal
of the Ethiopians' blood had been
done "for purely professional
medical reasons."
But while Ethiopia is beset by
an AIDS epidemic, the panel con-
tinued, "Countries such as Brazil,
Argentina, Mexico, India and
Thailand are in the same cate-
gory, and blood from these coun-
tries was not disqualified."
The commission recommend-
ed that MDA restrict blood do-
nations from Israelis who'd had
contact with 63 countries in
Africa, southern Asia, South
America and the Caribbean Is-
lands. MDA should refuse blood
from Israelis who had visited any
of these countries within a year
of their proferred donation, or
from Israelis who had spent at
least six months in any of these
countries in the 10 years before
The conclusions and
recommendations
were "superficial
and intended as a
cover-up."
— Knesset Member Adissu Messele
they came to donate blood.
Tens of thousands of Ethiopi-
an immigrants would be affect-
ed by such a policy, but it would
also apply to a possibly larger
number of Israelis who've taken
the popular, lengthy post-Army
tours of the eastern and south-
ern parts of the world.
The commission further found
that AMA's policy of secrecy re-
garding the disposal of Ethiopi-
an blood did not grow out of
malice, but rather out of a desire
to avoid "stigmatizing the entire
community."
However, the commission con-
tinued, this secrecy kept vital in-
formation from the Ethiopian
community and the general pub-
lic, and probably hindered AIDS
prevention among the Ethiopi-
ans because they didn't realize
how serious the problem was.
Mr. Messele insisted that the
recommended guidelines would
continue to ban Ethiopian blood
almost in its entirety. Blood
donors should be accepted or re-
jected individually, not by coun-
try, he said. (MDA argues that
individual AIDS tests are im-
practical for blood donations.)
"We will renew our public
battle over the issue of the
destruction of Ethiopian immi-
grants' blood until we are treat-
ed as equals among equals," he
promised. The immigrants will
ask the Supreme Court to bar
MDA from acceptitg the Navon
Commission's recommenda-
tions. ❑
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