Annotated Bibliography Sample 3

Aschwanden, Christie. "No cheating in the blood test." New Scientist 184.2467 (2004): 17-17. Academic Search Premier. 6 May 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

There are multiple ways to manipulate the system, as if illegally procuring and selling organs wasn’t enough. The athlete looking for an extra edge might be sitting idly in biology and take a basic concept about red blood cells, that they carry oxygen. Knowing that oxygen is essential for physical activity (and life), perhaps he wonders about a boost, inducing the body to produce more red blood cells with drugs or skipping the energy needed to produce ones own cells, manages to wrangle a transfusion. New tests at major events for these creative cheaters involve searching for minor antigens.

Bates, Jane. "Blood pressure." Nursing Standard 18.35 (2004): 22-23. Academic Search Premier. 6 May 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

My mother is a nurse and generally has a good story or two to tell; one in particular that she reassures me is that it’s the big tough guys who pass out at the sight of blood. Take my uncle, for example, an engineer, 6’2” and hairy. A friend broke his wrist one day and my uncle went with him to the ER; when the doctors were “moving the bones around like a joystick,” my uncle could feel something was wrong. He left the room with as much dignity as possible only to pass out between the automatic sliding doors which, in true comedic style, tried to close and open on his prone body. All the same, this strange occurrence of hemophobia (fear of blood) has a strange trend in the direction of those big tough guys. Despite all rhyme or reason, there’s still an innate sense of my blood should stay in my body.

Fee, Elizabeth and Daniel Fox, eds. AIDS: The Making of a Chronic Disease. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.
• Cook, Timothy and David Colby. “The Mass-Mediated Epidemic: The Politics of AIDS on the Nightly Network News.” Fee 84-122.

Television with all its flashing commercials has an interesting power to start and not fully quell a panic. When AIDS started to grow in the public conscious, naturally, stories and rumors fly. The gay community was targeted and attacked by some but they were certainly not the only sufferers; they had the misfortune of being seen as carriers instead of victims. It would easily be a difficult position to run a news network, wondering how much to disclose to keep the public informed and how much to brush over to ensure a calm audience. Some stories become community events, some are private sufferings, others turn into mid-afternoon movie specials. One way or another, though, AIDS became the new leprosy.

• Sapolsky, Harvey and Stephen Boswell. “The History of Transfusion AIDS: Practice and Policy Alternatives.” Fee 170-93.

With communities in fearful uproar, blood donation centers had to counteract the problem or watch as the bank shelves remained empty. I spoke with one of the members of the Red Cross blood drive who mentioned that the questionnaire for the potential donor has gone from four questions to over a hundred. Questions that have been added since I’ve been donating include issues such as CJD—Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease, mad cow disease when it crosses the species border; specifically, a question or two pertaining to travel of specific countries since 1980. Blood centers promised that all donations would be screened before they had sure technology to do so as they do now.

Godin, G., et al. "Factors explaining the intention to give blood among the general population." Vox Sanguinis 89.3 (2005): 140-149. Academic Search Premier. 6 May 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

Perhaps today’s world lacks motivation to be altruistic. It’s a dog eat dog world. Gotta look out for number one. It’s all about me. It’s all about the Benjamins, baby. A man actually is an island. Yet despite all of this, there are those who give blood on a regular basis. Trying to quantify this aspect is a tricky task. Many fall back on similar reasons for not donating including fear of needles and a long trip to the donation centers. Common reasons for donation include the sense of “because I’m healthy and I can,” the blood supply is always wanting, or the donor has seen someone benefit from transfusion. Any study surrounding donation will be subject to variance, since rational for donate can still stem to many new reasons (from a martyr complex to trying to make the Red Cross leave them alone or the need for one more card in a stuffed wallet). It’s also possible that those who wouldn’t donate also would be those who wouldn’t respond to this study.

Goodwin, Michele. Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Naturally, if the subject is veering off toward new senses of what is legal and what is not, mention of the infamous black market cannot go overlooked. What causes this phenomena? Quite simply, there is a recognition that the system is flawed. Goodwin mentions a particular case where a sixty-one year old state governor received not one but two organs (could have saved two lives, right there) after spending only a day on the waitlist and the wake of outcry from the family members who have been waiting for weeks, months, and years for their own loved one to receive an organ. There is a bias and there is a shortage of organs, particularly now when each potential donor is screened and re-screened so as not to pass on any new diseases to the recipient (who will be under many drugs to suppress the immune system). Even if there wasn’t a shortage, there would ultimately be those who wait longer than others. So desperate folk buy organs through shady connections that occur in dark alleyways with suitcases full of money and other movie clichés, never mind the viability of the organ and who it came from.

Lemmens, K. P. H., et al. "Why don’t young people volunteer to give blood? An investigation of the correlates of donation intentions among young nondonors." Transfusion 45.6 (2005): 945-955. Academic Search Premier. 6 May 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

Young blood donors are targeted specifically because they have the potential to donate for years to come, and once a pattern of donating is set perhaps it is hopefully less likely to stop. A general trend of a decline in blood donors, particularly young donors (between eighteen and thirty), has been sighted in many countries, including a study conducted in the Netherlands. Dutch students may or may not receive formal education concerning blood transfusion and donation yet those that do donate presumably form their opinions from a general moral attitude and societal influences overall. Has the social perception of blood donation slurred so far out of favor to fall toward animosity?

Moxey, A. J., et al. "Blood transfusion and autologous donation: a survey of post-surgical patients, interest group members and the public." Transfusion Medicine 15.1 (2005): 19-32. Academic Search Premier. 6 May 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

Patients facing surgery, assuming that he or she is healthy enough, can be asked to donate blood for himself or herself prior to the surgery. These autologous donations are reassuring in that there’s no real risk of contagion that the patient doesn’t already have from his or her own blood (though the risk of problems from transfusion is not eliminated). A study conducted in Australia looked into pre-operative autologous donations with the contingent that the donors had to pay to have them held, leaving the choice to either fork out the money and receive his or her own blood packaged and stored in a sterile, proper environment or depend on the national blood centers. Can peace of mind be bought? How far does blind trust reach? All surgery involves risk, but in this manner, there is no question of possession of the blood; the donation has started and ended in the same body.

"Poster Session: Blood Donors and Donation." Transfusion Medicine 11 (2001): 44-46. Academic Search Premier. 6 May 2007. http://search.ebscohost.com.

The best way to quell rumors and stories is to learn more about the subject. Uninformed decisions are recognizably unsafe, falling back to the old adage of “look before you leap.” Yet there’s still a trend to trust in rumor and not in the doctor, or sometimes to put too much trust in a doctor; for example, should a physician prescribe an antibiotic for a viral infection it won’t do anything against the virus). Another example, there is a standing belief that donating, not a transfusion but donating, blood can lead to an HIV infection though when a new, sterile syringe is used for each donor, this ridiculous notion is baffling. Where’s the happy medium between being informed and paranoid, well that’s a personal decision. All the same, learning more about one’s situation helps with closure and acceptance.

Schwalbe, Michael and Clifford Staples. “Forced Blood Testing: Role Taking, Identity, and Discrimination.” The Social Context of AIDS. Eds. Joan Huber and Beth Schneider. London: Sage Publications, Inc., 1992.

The AIDS virus is a good excuse for some to continue on paths of prejudice. Even those who know nothing of the statistics can still panic with the best of them, afraid that the slightest contact an HIV positive person would result in an instant death sentence. It was a touchy situation to discuss in the media, knowing that some would leap immediately to new conclusions and “a gay disease” opens the door for all sorts of dangerous and taboo talk. Discrimination is unfortunately likely to follow at one point in an AIDS individual sooner or later, regardless of how he or she happened to obtain the disease. Ideally, judgements would rely on facts, then individual conclusions, and subsequently taking action. But, try as one might, forcing information on a reluctant subject is something teachers have been struggling with for years. Action is difficult to instigate without the words “stubborn” and “pushy” making their way into the argument.