$10 Million Fine on Red Cross Highlights Its Troubled History Of Blood Services

A few weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration hit the American Red Cross with a nearly $10 million fine [1] for safety violations, lax oversight and faulty testing of its blood services. The fine is just the latest of more than a dozen the Red Cross has racked up in the last decade.

In 2003, a federal court, frustrated by repeated blood safety violations by the Red Cross, gave the FDA the power to fine the organization. Forty-six million dollars in penalties later, many of the same violations -- understaffing, ineffective screening of donors, failure to recall infected blood -- are outlined in the recent letter the FDA [2] sent to the executive vice president of Biomedical Services for the Red Cross.

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