Canadian Blood Services is expanding its deferral policy for vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt –Jakob disease) policy to include Saudi Arabia. A new question will be added to the Record of Donation donor questionnaire asking each donor if he or she has spent a cumulative total of six months or more in Saudi Arabia between 1980 and 1996. Answering yes will result in that person not being eligible to donate blood for transfusion. Canadian Blood Services began the process to make this change to the deferral policy (as communicated to Health Canada on February 24, 2011) immediately upon learning of a new