Let's look at human immunodeficiency virus look-back before leaping into.hepatitis C virus look-back

THESE ARE INTERESTING but disturbing times in transfusion medicine. For. better or worse, _our decisions and policies are influenced ·alinosf as much' by lawyers, legislators, ethicists, the media, and other "representatives" of the public interest as they are by physicians and scientists who have.devoted their li(e's work to the field. The issue presently at hand is the advisability of initiating a look-back program aimed at the identifica· lion, notification, testing, counseling, and treatment of persons who may have been infected with hepatiqs, C virus (HCV) through transfusions. And assuming t~at such an effort is appropriate. what would be the most efficient way of identifying the largest number of HCVinfected transfusion recipients as .. quickly as possible? Fortunately, we ltave accunmlated ~ substantial body of experience related to these issues over the past decade. Before considering HCV look-back, we should review the impetus for and efficacy of previous blood transfusion recipient notification efforts, to compare them with the situation now posed by HCV. We can then discuss and shape our policies and protocols vis-a-vis' HCV look-back (and look-back for other agents for which screening may be initiated in the future) on a scientific foundation, rather than as an incompletely evaluated response to a fear of lawsuits or scrutiny from inadequately informed physicians or the lay public.