ImpactLife, a blood donation collection organization operating in a swath of counties across central and west-central Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri, celebrated 50 years of saving lives on Tuesday in Danville.
The blood donation collection organizations that make up today’s ImpactLife were started in 1974. Central Illinois Community Blood Center, Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center, and Community Blood Services of Illinois merged by 2011 and in 2021 changed their name to ImpactLife.
The first blood centers in the United States were founded in the 1940s, primarily in response to the need for blood collection and storage in light of World War II. Today, patients may need a blood transfusion for any number of reasons, says Kirby Winn, public relations manager for ImpactLife.
“If we think about the reasons somebody might get a blood transfusion, one of the top is cancer. The disease process itself and the treatment for cancer, chemotherapy and radiation, can drive down blood cell counts and platelet counts. [Transfusion] doesn’t cure cancer, but it helps patients make it through their period of treatment,” Winn said.
Though 25% of blood donations are used by patients battling cancer, every two seconds, someone in America uses donated blood, according to an infographic on ImpactLife’s website. That’s why the ImpactLife Donor Center, located at 300 E. Liberty Lane in Danville, is always collecting blood donations.
“Those situations don’t occur at the same rate year round and don’t really take a day off,” said Winn. “And so that’s how we look at the blood supply and our donor schedules. We need to keep them full at a balanced rate, and it takes all the communities, you know, every group, doing their part, doing what they can to support the blood supply.”
Though all blood types are needed, some are more needed than others.
“If someone comes in and maybe they’ve been in an accident or they’ve lost blood due to an injury and now they’re in the emergency room and need a transfusion, there is no time,” Winn said. “You can’t wait to find out what their blood type is.”
Because of the immediate need for blood, universal blood types O-positive and O-negative are constantly in high demand.
“Type O-positive and type O-negative can go to all of the other blood types,” says Winn. “It’s called the universal donor. So there’s always more pressure on those universal blood types, especially, because they can be used in an emergency, before the patient’s blood type is known.”
Even so, donor centers like ImpactLife have to be selective about who can donate blood, both for the safety of the donor and the possible recipient.
When someone comes to the donor center to give blood, there is a multi-step process to ensure the donor is fit to donate. This includes a physical exam, where the patient’s blood pressure, blood type, and temperature are all checked, in case of an underlying infection or disease that could be contagious, or that could compromise the health of the donor by giving at that time, says Winn.
After a donor’s physical fitness is confirmed, they are given an assessment to determine risk. Blood donation centers are required to keep in line with guidance from the United States Food & Drug Administration which are intended to prevent the spread of diseases like HIV and Hepatitis B & C.
In previous decades, that meant blood donation centers were required to reject blood donations from men who claimed to be sexually active with other men. Those prohibitions have been lifted as time has passed and more research has been done.
In an effort to update their assessment questions and get rid of those that “alienated a subset of the population due to its focus on gender identity and sexual orientation rather than individual sexual behavior,” according to their website, ImpactLife has worked alongside other donation centers across the country to make those needed changes.
“We were hearing from men who would say, ‘I’m in a long-term committed, monogamous relationship. Why can’t I give blood?’ Because 90 days is a long period of time without sexual contact with your partner,” says Winn. “So the blood industry worked with U.S. Food and Drug Administration to kind of lobby for this kind of a change, and then we got permission through an update to the regulatory from FDA to go ahead and do this.”
In 2015, 2020, and again in 2023, the FDA overhauled the individual donor assessment used by donation centers like ImpactLife to determine whether a person is fit to give blood, in order to create more equitable donor eligibility standards.
Under the new guidance from the FDA, “previous blanket deferrals for men who have sex with men and for women who have sex with men who have sex with men were eliminated. The Donor History Questionnaire has been revised to ask all donors about new or multiple sexual partners in the past three months,” according to ImpactLife’s website.
If a prospective donor has had a new sexual partner, or more than one sexual partner in the past three months, they will then be asked additional questions.
These gender-inclusive questions are designed to “more precisely and reliably identify those who may have an increased risk of a newly acquired transfusion-transmissible infection,” according to the ImpactLife website.
For those interested in donating blood at ImpactLife, it’s best to schedule an appointment for donation by calling (800) 747-5401, scheduling an appointment online at www.bloodcenter.org, or via the ImpactLife mobile app, says Winn.
“To thank donors who come to give blood at this critical time of year, we’re giving everyone a voucher to redeem for their choice of an electronic gift card, points to use in our Donor Rewards Store, or an equivalent donation to Make-A-Wish Illinois under our ‘Good Giving’ program,” says Winn.
For more info on ImpactLife’s current donor promotions, visit their website at www.bloodcenter.org/now.