Lead levels in blood bank blood

Although blood bank blood is usually screened for dangerous pathogens, the presence of toxic metals in blood has received little attention. Population blood lead levels have been declining in the United States, but occasional high outliers in blood lead concentration can be found-even when mean leve ls of blood lead are low. We sampled 999 consecutive blood bank bags from t he King/Drew Medical Center, used between December 1999 and February 2000. The geometric mean blood lead level was 1.0 mug/dl (0.048 mu mol/l), but 0. 5% of the samples had lead levels that exceeded 10 mug/dl, and 2 samples ha d lead levels that exceeded 30 mug/dl. The 2 samples with the highest lead levels could have presented an additional risk to infants if they were used for blood replacement. Therefore, even in countries with generally low pop ulation blood lead levels, blood bank blood should be screened for lead con centration prior to use with infants.