Purpose: To quantitate the likely effect on the available eye donor pool by excluding potential donors who may have had exposure to variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease by virtue of spending time in countries where bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is endemic.

Methods: A telephone survey by systematic sampling from the Brisbane phone directory was undertaken to ascertain the number of potential donors who had resided in the United Kingdom and in other countries. 

Results: Between 19% of potential donors would have had to have been excluded by virtue of residing in the United Kingdom for months between 1980 and 1996 and 29% for those who had traveled to any other country in which BSE was identified. 

Conclusions: This study suggests that adopting an eye bank policy of excluding donors potentially exposed to BSE would have a significant effect on donor numbers. Health departments and eye banks will need to weigh the small additional protection from such policy decisions against the likely effect on corneal tissue supply.