A LEADING medical expert has called for urgent action to protect the public from the risk of potentially contaminated blood products.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Dr Sheila Bird, a senior member of the Medical Research Council, says the death of the first probable victim of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) from a blood transfusion means steps must be taken to define the rights of those at risk, as well as the public.

The call highlights growing concerns over the safety of blood products used in the UK.

Because there is no way of testing blood for vCJD, Dr Bird recommends that people who have received blood products that may be contaminated must stop giving blood.

But Carol Grayson, from Newcastle, whose HIV-positive and haemophiliac partner Peter Longstaff has been exposed to HIV and vCJD infection from contaminated blood products, went much further.

She said: "Following the recent first confirmed cases of BSE and vCJD in the US, we can no longer guarantee that the US plasma we use in Britain is free from these infections."

Mr Longstaff recently lost a High Court battle against his local health trust's refusal to fund treatment with synthetic blood products.