News Release

BAXTER'S NEW e-CHAIR TO ENTICE BLOOD DONORS WITH MULTIMEDIA ENTERTAINMENT AND INTERNET ACCESS

DEERFIELD, Ill., August 8, 2001 - While juice and cookies remain a mainstay of the blood donation experience, blood centers and hospitals may now offer donors the ability to surf the Web, answer e-mail or watch a movie. Baxter Healthcare Corporation announced today that it has launched the e-Chair, a state-of-the-art donor chair that provides a number of audio, visual and electronic communication functions to those who recline in it. The e-Chair offers donors the opportunity to do something for themselves, while donating life-saving blood components.

Time constraints are cited as one of the leading reasons individuals don't donate blood. Increasing demands on people's time are making the job of donor recruiters, those charged with enlisting new donors and retaining current blood donors, ever more challenging. They no longer vie solely for the scarce resource of blood components, but also donors' time. The e-Chair provides donors the opportunity to multi-task, assisting blood centers in their efforts to recruit and retain blood donors.

The components of the ergonomically designed contoured e-Chair include many conveniences of home and office, including: a computer with a DVD player, computer monitor and keyboard, Internet connectivity and stereo headphones. These translate to benefits for donors who may be interested in watching movies, listening to music, surfing the Internet, catching up on e-mail or playing computer games. These features are best suited to apheresis donation procedures, which may take one to two hours. The brief time required to collect whole blood, between 10 and 20 minutes, is not as conducive to use of the e-Chair's features.

Blood Donation - The Gift of Life
Each year approximately 14 million units of blood are donated in the United States. These units are transfused to approximately 4.5 million Americans annually. In the United States, approximately 32,000 units of red blood cells are needed daily. People who need transfusions include accident victims, people undergoing surgery and cancer patients. The majority of people need transfusions of only certain blood components. Therefore, a single blood donation can benefit as many as four patients' lives.

As an alternative to whole blood donation, blood components may also be collected through a process called apheresis. This process uses an automated instrument to remove a specific component of the blood, such as platelets, and return the remaining blood components, such as red blood cells and plasma, to the donor. This process allows more of one component of the blood to be collected than could be obtained from a whole blood donation. Apheresis platelets are most commonly used
to prevent bleeding in cancer patients who may be platelet deficient as a result of their disease or therapy.

While blood donors are needed throughout the year, they are most needed during the summer months and holidays. Typically, blood donations decline during these time periods, but the need for blood components continues, or even increases. To be eligible to donate blood, a person must generally be at least 17 years of age, be in good health, and weigh at least 110 pounds. Most blood banks do not have an upper age limit.

Individuals may request an appointment to donate blood through the Blood Donation section at www.baxterfenwal.com. This Internet-based service enables potential blood donors to submit an online request for an appointment to donate blood at their local blood center.

Baxter Healthcare Corporation is the principal U.S. operating subsidiary of Baxter International Inc. Baxter International Inc. (NYSE:BAX) is a global medical products and services company that, through its subsidiaries, provides critical therapies for people with life-threatening conditions. Baxter's products and services in the areas of bioscience (including biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, biosurgery products and transfusion therapies), medication delivery and renal therapy are used by health-care providers and their patients in more than 100 countries.

(Baxter and e-Chair are trademarks of Baxter International Inc.)

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

	Media Contacts: Margaret Stanford Shubny, (847) 948-3951