The State - News from April 1, 1985

The Irwin Memorial Blood Bank in San Francisco is launching its first advertising campaign, at a cost of $100,000, to persuade wary donors that they cannot contract AIDS by giving blood. Officials at the blood bank, one of the nation’s largest non-profit community blood banks, warned that if blood donations continue to drop, there could soon be “acute shortages.” Collections at Irwin fell to 360 pints a day for the first three months this year, compared to 400 a day in the same period last year, said Brian McDonough, the blood bank’s executive director.