story makes me mad

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/30/documentary-traces-childrens-aids/

calling what happened corporate expediency is a reach
they killed off so many folks and the ripples are still spreading

[Strings]

Everyone here knows my feelings about "gay rights" and the like. That said...


Why on Earth would we even bother discussing any kind of "balancing act" between public safety and the feelings of a group known to have an increased likelyhood of having an incurable disease that is transmitted through the  blood?

IN this case, we shouldn't even be talking about changing the policy...

[AZRedhawk44]

Well said, Strings.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i was more mad about the way that folks sat on the certain knowledge that the clotting factor was killing folks and allowed so many folks to get infected

[roo_ster]

Everyone here knows my feelings about "gay rights" and the like. That said...


Why on Earth would we even bother discussing any kind of "balancing act" between public safety and the feelings of a group known to have an increased likelyhood of having an incurable disease that is transmitted through the  blood?

IN this case, we shouldn't even be talking about changing the policy...

Yup.

Or, the spirit of, "Everything Israeli Is Better" we could adopt their policy of allowing high-risk groups to donate, but destroying the blood before it gets into the supply.

"Sure, you can engage in MSM, frequent bath houses, be an IV drug user, and wrestle in pig manure with open wounds and still give blood.  No problemo!"

i was more mad about the way that folks sat on the certain knowledge that the clotting factor was killing folks and allowed so many folks to get infected

Seems like it was a case of "Die soon by bleed out or die later by AIDS" given that the blood supply was tainted and for many years there was no good test for HIV.

FTR, I'd rather they trumpeted the data far & wide as soon as they learned of it.  Maybe then, we would have taken a more serious look at donor risk factors and addressed them. 

I can easily see how what is now called "expedience" had more than a little "fear the homosexual lobby would send ACT-UP to stage a die-in at your HQ and 60 Minutes would do a hit-piece on your company."

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

what it was was greed plain and simple.  when the info was first discovered the company sat on it for a year so "we can figure out our position on this" . the company communications ended up public

[roo_ster]

what it was was greed plain and simple.  when the info was first discovered the company sat on it for a year so "we can figure out our position on this" . the company communications ended up public

I'm willing to believe the worst of folks, but I doubt it was quite as cut & dried as that.

IIRC, it took many years to even get an HIV test developed.  

<digs into the data>

Yep, this occurred before an HIV test was developed in 1985 and the first rapid (doesn't take days/weeks to get results) test in 1992.  Not only could they not test donated blood, they could not be sure if someone really had HIV.  (First AIDS reports of any kind date to 1981 & AIDS is suspected to have entered the USA via Haiti in 1969--the 4 Hs: Haitians, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, heroin users)

Added:
I wonder how many folks died of AIDS via blood transfusions from 1969-1981 when AIDS was sort of IDed.  A whole 12 years where the blood supply was contaminated but we didn;t know it.  (From 1981-1985 we knew the blood supply was contaminated, but we couldn't do much about it.)

HIV Test Timeline:
http://www.kff.org/hivaids/upload/6094-05.pdf

Report in 1984 on hemophilia & AIDS:
http://wonder.cdc.gov/wonder/prevguid/p0000356/p0000356.asp
Two years after the very first inkling that there might be a link.  Interesting in the ambiguity and the large number/scope of unknowns at the time.  Also interesting in that it severely underestimated the % of hemophiliacs infected with HIV.

1988 NYT article on the topic:
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/16/us/hemophilia-and-aids-silent-suffering.html
Speaks about how the new clotting factors revolutionized the lives of hemophiliacs for the better.  This occurred at about the same time the first AIDS cases were being seen, if not yet recognized as "AIDS" in the late 1970s.  What a horrific choice: hte drug that made life livable would eventually kill you.

[Myself]

When daughter #2 was born in a crash dive emergency in 1986 Mrs. Myself had severe hemorrhaging.  At that time they knew the blood supply was contaminated but there was nothing they could do about it.  Mrs. ended up without whole blood as much as she needed it.  If she would have bleed even a little more there would have been no choice.  She would have had to get a transfusion to live. 

Tough decisions are always clearer in retrospect.

[roo_ster]

When daughter #2 was born in a crash dive emergency in 1986 Mrs. Myself had severe hemorrhaging.  At that time they knew the blood supply was contaminated but there was nothing they could do about it.  Mrs. ended up without whole blood as much as she needed it.  If she would have bleed even a little more there would have been no choice.  She would have had to get a transfusion to live. 

Tough decisions are always clearer in retrospect.

<Thanks the Good Lord my wife's pregnancies were boring and deliveries were a snap.>

[gunsmith]

of course there are the guys that went and donated blood without ever saying they have had sex with men. I'm thinking military/LE. You know, a fellow cop gets shot, everyone donates blood but a few are not going to own up, no matter how private the info is.

I saw a study awhile ago that said that many black/hispanic men who have had gay sex do not consider themselves gay and stuff.

I've always had doubts about the blood supply, so many places have bums donating for drinking money

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

each dose of clotting factor uses products from hundreds of blood donors if i remember right.  the drug company sat on the info about the contamination for a full year after it was discovered internally. many more folks infected in that year. it stuck in my mind cause i knew where the ceo lived, and folks were looking for him. i was tempted to help them find him.