HIV-Infected Patients Participating in Autologous Blood Programs-Reply

In Reply.  —I appreciate the interest of the correspondents in the Commentary. Drs Popovsky and Hoff note that the topic could have been extended to consider patients infected with hepatitis B. In fact, the manuscript originally submitted did address other viruses transmissible by transfusion. In the course of the review and editing process, this material was eliminated.The Commentary discussed the ethical, legal, and medical issues regarding the participation of HI V-infected patients in autologous blood programs. It is hard to conceive how these are "the wrong transfusion issues for HIV-infected persons." To the contrary, the points made by Popovsky and Hoff are peripheral to the specific consideration of whether HIV infection should, by itself, disqualify a patient from providing autologous blood if he or she otherwise would have done so. Obviously, no one will argue with their statements that many HIV-infected patients would not be eligible to participate owing