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Having worked in the blood bank I just don’t see this as a massive win. Win, sure. Massive? ABO issues are a tiny fraction of what the blood bank deals with. If all blood was O neg blood bankers would still have a busy job. I’d be more excited to see a development in reducing TRALI, creating 30 day platelets or something like that. I just don’t see this as fundamentally changing much in the blood bank. More O is good of course, but blood bank is way more involved than that.
I have experience in the field. This is good news, but I don’t find it particularly uplifting. The reality is blood bank is much more complicated than the ABO type. If you eliminated all ABO antigens tomorrow blood banking would not be massively impacted. Blood drives would be easier and you’d see fewer calls for O neg donations. I’d expect the impact to mainly ease logistics. I do not think it would have much effect on patients / those needing blood. We do a good job managing O neg levels to ensure those who need it, can get it. This is not a case of me being grouchy, this is a case of organ donation being much more complicated than the first thing you learned about it.