Southern states routinely segregated “white” and “black” blood. Most admitted their policies had no scientific basis. The Red Cross, which refused donations from African Americans for plasma collection, called its reasoning “a matter of tradition and sentiment rather than of science.”58 The US War Department directed that “for reasons which are not biologically convincing but which are commonly recognized as psychologically important in America, it is not deemed advisable to collect and mix Caucasian and Negro blood indiscriminately for later administration to members of the military
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