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Not something you want to hear from an organization that controls 43 percent of the nation’s blood supply, in essence making it the world’s largest single steward of blood, more than twice the size of the second-largest known blood collection operation.

While the American Red Cross is good at screening for HIV and hepatitis B, syphilis, malaria, and other forms of hepatitis are still problematic.

Failing to ask donors questions that would reveal their ineligibility to give blood is the most frequent errors cited by F.D.A. investigators. Interviewers are supposed to ask a donor whether he or she has traveled in an area where malaria is a problem, but that is not routinely done.

Dr. Kessler, a professor of pediatric medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, referring to the FDA and the American Red Cross said: “Leaving aside who’s at fault here, it’s not working.”

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