Two years ago, blood banks turned away donors who had lived in the United Kingdom because of growing concerns over mad cow disease. Now the ban is spreading over Europe.

Officials at the American Red Cross will soon turn away blood donors who have lived in Western Europe for more than six months from 1980 to now, and are urging other agencies to follow suit.

Despite Red Cross insistence that blood from donors who have lived here could be contaminated with the disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, officials from the military have not halted blood drives.

"The European medical command has not" stopped collections, said Susan Porter, supervisor at the donor center in Heidelberg Army Hospital. "It’s safe, quality, pure blood."

The latest blood panic started with the Red Cross’ announcement Wednesday, after a few animals that tested positive for the disease surfaced in Germany, the Netherlands and France, according to ABC News.

Growing concern sparked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to schedule a meeting Thursday to discuss whether to ban donors who have lived in Europe.

"I think we need to settle down," said Army Maj. David Reiber, chief of Blood Services for Landstuhl Army Medical Center.

Fears about the effects of mad cow disease began in the mid-1990s when England scientists discovered a new strain of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which humans appear to catch by eating beef contaminated with BSE.

Some scientists believe the human variation, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or vCJD, can be spread through blood transfusions.

Reiber said the Red Cross may be jumping to some hasty conclusions about how severe a problem BSE is throughout Europe when separated from the cases in the United Kingdom.

To date, vCJD accounts for 88 deaths in England, one in Ireland and three in France since it surfaced.

The Red Cross ban on blood donations only includes those by people who have visited the UK from January 1980 to December 1996. Reiber points out that anybody who visited the UK after 1996 still could donate blood, based on ban restrictions.

"We have only a few cases of BSE in all the rest of Europe and we’re now looking to ban all that blood?" Reiber said. "We may be a little premature."

He also said that unless the FDA sets down a new law banning blood from Western Europe donors, the military will not follow what the Red Cross suggests.

Army members in Europe donate about 3,000 units of blood annually, according to Reiber.

The Air Force donates 1,000 units each year. Of that, the majority of the blood donated stays within the theater to be used for Americans who need it.

Reiber said that the military gets some blood from the American Red Cross in the United States when additional units are needed.

The military also sends blood to the States when there’s an excess in Europe.

If the Red Cross were to cut back on its donations to Europe because of the ban, Americans in Europe would still be OK, Reiber said.

"I doubt we’ll have any impact whatsoever [from the ban], but if we needed it, we would have people here to draw from," Reiber said.