I think you are misspeaking here. The Red Cross did not arbitrarily REFUSE to insure the safety of the blood supply. They COULD NOT insure it, because there were no tests available at that time to allow them to do so.
Remember, it was called AIDS until 1984, when the virus causing it was first identified. A reliable test for it was not found until the following year. A lot more time passed before the entire blood supply could be screened.
Even today, since no test is 100% reliable, it is not possible to INSURE that all blood in the Red Cross supply is completely free of harmful agents. So it’s a bit ingenuous to accuse them of “refusing to insure the supply,” as though they purposely did something nasty or irresponsible.
Oh, yeah, I remember when “they” said there would be a vaccine available by 1990, yada yada yada, even before scientists knew what caused the disease in the first place.
Until HIV testing became available, the Red Cross counted T-cells and discarded units under a certain amount, because it WAS known that whatever caused AIDS targeted the T-cells. It was the best they could do.
Actually, there was a time, brief, when the Red Cross did stick its head under the sand and refuse to accept the people could get AIDS (it might still have been called GRID) from a blood transfusion. Then a baby came down with it, a baby who had never been out of the hospital since birth, and had had several blood transfusions. Its parents were thoroughly checked for infections, and past drug use, and had none, and after a certain amount of time had passed, and the parents had to be admitted to be uninfected (no test, remember?) the Red Cross had to accept that the baby got the disease from a transfusion. So the Red Cross looked into donors who could potentially have been in the baby’s pool, and found that one had already died of an AIDS related infection.
I’m remembering this from And the Band Played on… I could be misremembering slightly, but there was a time when the Red Cross exhibited a certain amount of denial. Finally, the response was to refuse donations from men who had ever had sex with another man, or people who had ever used IV drugs. I think they also refused anyone who had ever had a transfusion. I gave blood in the 80s, and the list of people not permitted to donate because of life circumstances was very long. It probably meant that donations dropped severely.
My mother had surgery in 1988, and she made me do a directed donation, because she was afraid of the general blood supply. She didn’t end up needing any blood. I asked her why she didn’t do her own directed donation, and she didn’t have an answer. She’s never donated blood in her life, and I think she just didn’t want to start.
Thanks for the responses guys, I learned a lot. I knew syphilis was stigmatized but I just assumed it wasn’t anywhere near the level as the fearmongering AIDS received in the 80s and 90s but clearly I was wrong. I guess my assumptions were based on the fact that I don’t see the history of syphilis and its impact on society being studied and covered with the same breadth that AIDS has. Kinda like how some people are genuinely clueless about the stigmatization of menstruation because it’s not something that was publicly discussed until very recently.
You might want to Google Image syphilis and see for yourself what this disease used to do to people. It’s not pretty, and not limited to genitalia either.
Yes, syphilis was a huge problem, it was thoroughly stigmatized and regarded with fear and loathing, and it was often literally thought of as God’s punishment for sexual sin, just like AIDS later was.
Then along came antibiotic treatments, and it just kind of faded from public consciousness.
A tainted transfusion killed my favorite writer, Isaac Asimov. And it was so stigmatized that nobody knew he died of AIDS until 10 years after his death, and almost 20 years after he first contracted HIV.
Congratulations. 23 posts in before any one mentioned that it was not ONLY a gay disease at the time. IIRC the second most prevalent transmission route was IV drug users with the third being accidental needle encounter by health workers or infected mothers. I forget which. I also recall the amount of research $$$$ spent per infected person dwarfed that of any other medical ailment.
I had an acquaintance at the time that AIDS was a death sentence that stated upon a confirming test, the infected person should be executed to slow the spread. His attitude was they are dying 6 mos to a year out anyway. I haven’t contacted him since soon after that time.
A fantastic book, and spot-on. The lack of governmental interest until someone not an immigrant, gay, or a junkie got the disease was disgusting. How Ryan White and his family were treated was disgusting. The fear stoked in large part by right-wing religious preachers sharing complete and total untruths from their fevered imaginations was disgusting. I saw a lot of it as I lived in the Land of Evangelical Nutburgers.
BTW, I started working as a CNA in a hospital during the 1980s, and quite clearly remember that people with HIV/AIDS/GRID were demonized, and people were afraid of them. People believed they were in danger from mosquitoes biting them after biting someone who was gay. They also thought they were in danger if they attended the funeral and were near the corpse of someone who died of AIDS. Two family members died of AIDS during that time, though the public “cause” given was “cancer”.
As an entertaining aside, my high school principal circa 1986 tried to prevent the student newspaper (of which I was the editor) from publishing an article about how to avoid and prevent HIV/AIDS (and other STDs). In a conversation with the editors of the paper, he told us that “only THOSE people get AIDS” and that you could prevent it by using a “conundrum”.
I certainly would not quote anyone here because that is invidious and wrong, however from Cracked, a media publication in no way accusatory to Gays or HIV sufferers, on the vile and depraved Sheriff Arpaio *:
But some people, like longtime Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff,” feel that something as silly as due process is for other, lesser folk. Which is probably why he rules over his county like a syphilitic Roman emperor.
2016 June 26
I have never been able to understand, since watching American Gothic, why America invests sheriffs with so much power. I honestly can’t think of any single legal officer here or in Europe who has so much discretion or forces at his disposal.
First off, kudos on your beyond belief manners in not naming names here. Now all that’s left is for you to fiind Cracked magazine piously applauding AIDS victims as martyrs and you will have successfully shown Cracked to be a hypocrite and you not to be full of crap.
Which group of words in my post led you to ask that? No it is clearly used as an insult but that’s only half of what you found “foully disgusting”. I think I’ll just drop it here.
*Abrahamic *societies??:dubious: Pretty much most major societies until recently. *America’s *attitudes towards gays?:dubious: Most of the world had issues with homosexuality.
And it was so stigmatized that nobody knew he died of AIDS until 10 years after his death, and almost 20 years after he first contracted HIV.