Are the French afraid of feedback loops? People donate contaminated blood, the receivers donate more contaminated blood and contamination gets more and more?
But you test for contaminated blood anyway, before giving it to someone, so it’s not really a problem (if the tests are good enough).
Tests have limits, in particular there is a quiet period during which an agent may be present in the blood but not yet detectable.
Also, one can only test for known pathogens. In the abovementioned UK case, HIV was not even known at the time of many of the transfusions (70’s), and the symptoms of AIDS are only visible on the longer term. Similar for the Hepatitis C virus
ah, that makes sense
Another angle to consider is how these general policies involve balancing a tradeoff between blood supply quality (safety) versus quantity (the size of the eligible donor pool). If there are enough willing donors, then policy makers have more leeway for adopting more cautious criteria to minimize risks.
That looks fun
And which is the cause?
I read the article and I see quite a wide range of causes.
It looks to me that the article is a little bit manipulative.
Anyway, there is some interesting data.
So, there is an event. The purpose I assume that it is about mitigating climate change. So, a small city, or rather a big town moves around the globe to work on this issue. And my question is, how much of that activity actually requires exchanging bacteria, not only information?
Hello all the new people! 
I just heard a report in German news radio about this and then had to look it up … this is so awesome 
