In last week's column, several people living in Japan explained that whether they were able to donate blood was primarily determined by health or safety concerns rather than Japanese language ability, which we originally discussed in our April 3 column, "Less-than-fluent foreigners may have trouble giving blood."
In response to Lou, who wrote in to tell us that this type of screening is typical and "key to insuring the safety of the blood supply," that was precisely the point. The anecdotes in last week's column were shared to illustrate the fact that while some blood donation centers in Japan might turn a foreigner away because they can't speak Japanese fluently enough, others only do so because of legitimate health or safety reasons, as is common around the world.
As promised last week, let's look at some of the Japan Red Cross Society's blood donation rules.