
So why the ban? Following advice from the World Health Organisation, in 2001 the French banned from giving blood anyone who’d spent 12 months or more in the UK between 1980 and 1996. There was a risk – very small, said some (but not all) experts – that they might have blood infected with CJD, the human form of mad cow disease.
Recently there was some talk of this ban on British blood being relaxed. But now the Ministry of Health – Bon sang! – says there are no plans to do this.