Blood Could Be Sent to Vietnam

Students giving blood through the Phillips Brooks House Drive this spring will be able to request that their donation be sent to the American servicemen in South Vietnam.

The director of the blood program for the Cambridge Red Cross, Miss Lee Grace, said yesterday that allowing such an option did not represent any commitment by the Red Cross for or against the Administration's Vietnam policy.

Several weeks ago, she said, the Cambridge Red Cross was asked by a student in the Boston area to organize a blood drive for North Vietnam. The request was refused, Miss Grace explained, because the American Red Cross exists "primarily to assist the American people." She said that the North Vietnamese could appeal to the International Red Cross for blood.

The blood will be sent to South Vietnam in the form of gamma globulin which is injected into all servicemen to protect against an epidemic of infectious hepatitis. Whole blood will not be sent to South Vietnam.