Blood Feuds AIDS, Blood, and the Politics of Medical Disaster

In the mid-1980s public health officials in North America, Europe, Japan,and Australia discovered that almost half of the hemophiliac population, as wellas tens of thousands of blood transfusion recipients, had been infected withHIV-tainted blood. This book provides a comparative perspective on thepolitical, legal, and social struggles that emerged in response to the HIVcontamination of the industrialized world's blood supply. It describes how eightnations responded to the first signs that AIDS might be transmitted throughblood, and how they falteringly arrived at and finally implemented measures tosecure the blood supply. The authors detail the remarkable saga of themobilization of hemophiliacs who challenged the state, the medicalestablishment, and even their own caregivers as they sought recompense andjustice. In the end, the blood establishments in almost every advancedindustrial nation were shaken. In Canada, the Red Cross was forced to withdrawfrom blood collection and distribution. In Japan, pharmaceutical firms thatmanufactured clotting factor agreed to massive compensation -- $500,000 perhemophiliac infected. In France, blood officials went to prison. Even inDenmark, where the number of infected hemophiliacs was relatively small, thestruggle and litigation surrounding blood has resulted in the most protractedlegal and administrative conflict in modern Danish history. Blood Feuds bringstogether chapters on the experiences of the United States, Japan, France,Canada, Germany, Denmark, Italy, and Australia with four comparative essays thatshed light on the cultural, institutional, and economic dimensions of theHIV/blood disaster.