> I omitted a pile of them.
>
> As for SARS, I'm sure the reason there were no questions about that were better than "slow to react." One, they might have covered that disease further down the chain (I bailed on the very first step, so I don't know the others were before you actually get to give blood). Two, they might be testing the blood for that themselves. Three, whatever the process of handling the blood is would screen out things like SARS anyway. As I said, mad cow disease is one of several slow-acting viruses that are extremely difficult to detect for the first several years after they are contracted.

Further down the chain seems most likely to me. Our SARS question is one of the last on the list. Still, though, I don't think that they would fall back on the testing -- up here, they try to avoid having to do that wherever possible, since NO series of tests is 100% likely to detect everything every time. But yeah, like you say, Mad Cow is hard to detect -- as far as I know, they still don't even KNOW if it can be transmitted by blood, nor how to detect it in the blood if it can.

In any case, my faith in the US blood system has been restored! No longer will I be afraid to drive at dangerously high speeds on US freeways!