US BLOOD SUPPLY/EUROPE

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. officials working to protect the nation's blood supply from mad cow disease proposed Monday expanding a ban on blood donations to include more people who visited Britain and others who lived in Europe for five years or more since 1980.

Under the proposal from the Food and Drug Administration, people who spent three months or more in Britain from 1980 to 1996 would be banned from giving blood. Current rules set the limit at six months or more during the same period.

New restrictions also would prohibit blood donations from people who spent five years or more anywhere in Europe from 1980 to the present, received a blood transfusion in Britain since 1980 or lived for six months or longer at U.S. military bases in Europe at various times during the mad cow outbreak.

The new limits would be phased in, with some taking effect May 31, 2002, and others on October 31, 2002, to give blood banks time to prepare and to help maintain an adequate blood supply, the FDA said. The agency will take public comments for 30 days and plans to issue final guidelines by the end of the year.

Officials are taking precautions because scientists do not know if the fatal, brain-wasting disease can be spread through blood. Most cases of the human form, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, have occurred in Britain, and others have been seen elsewhere in Europe. No cases of the human or cattle forms have been found in the United States.

"We are taking these steps to help protect the safety of the blood supply at a time when science does not allow us to rule out the risk of transmission of vCJD through blood transfusions," Bernard Schwetz, the FDA's acting principal deputy commissioner, said in a statement.

The possibility of turning away more donors has raised concerns about blood shortages. Some hospitals already have had to postpone non-emergency surgeries because of shortages.

The Red Cross, which collects about half of the U.S. blood supply, is imposing its own restrictions on September 17 that are broader than the FDA proposal. The Red Cross said it will stop taking blood from anyone who has spent three months or more in Britain or six months or more in Europe from 1980 to the present.