Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale

Excellent Documentary
This was overall an excellent documentary that I would highly recommend to everyone. But be warned, there were a few overly dramatic segments.

There was absolutely NO excuse for what the drug companies did to the hemophiliac population knowing what they did in fact know at the time. And for that, I will never defend them for their role this tragedy.

However, I do think the film left out some critical historical information. While the history of HIV in the hemophilia community is a compelling story that needs to be told, to me, a documentary should be more objective than this film comes off (Don't get me wrong, I am on her side of the fence from my own subjective standpoint). After watching this, you will walk away hating the medical industry and feeling hopeless about healthcare -- you know, as if in today's day and age you dont already -- and you shouldn't.

Although Bad Blood is excellent and highly watchable, this film is not the complete history...

Trust no one
I always thought I had a low opinion of my fellow human beings. But "Bad blood" showed me people are a thousand times worse than I expect them to be.

I caught this show on PBS and missed a few minutes at the beginning, so I thought this was a show about hemophilia. No. It was about how drug companies, government agencies and doctors murdered 10,000 hemophilia patients. Ten thousand Americans got AIDS from tainted blood and died. When the evidence that the blood supply in the country was tainted with HIV and hepatitis surfaced, the people who are supposed to protect patients decided to do nothing and wait for data. What data? Logic says if the drug companies are not screening blood sellers for diseases, and the production of hemophilia drugs requires mixing blood from a huge number of people, contamination is highly likely. Then when eventually the drug companies "quietly" recalled the tainted drugs, they were allowed to ship the recalled product to foreign countries. What...

Truth and Consequences
Back in Feburary 1984 I was in a near fatal auto accident. It was the height of AIDS without a blood test available to screen contaminated blood. Due to the injuries/complications which required arterial blood gas tests every 2hrs, and even surgeries, I lost a lot of blood. It was sheer torture to go from weeks being bedridden to a tilt-table to "stand" upright (a feat I couldn't do on my own, just would pass out), as there wasn't enough red blood cells to oxygenate the blood. After a surgery to nail the femur, the doctors had to make a choice: give blood or have complications and die. They knew the blood could've been my death sentence, if the complications didn't kill me first. But I could tell it was urgent, having lost even more blood ripping IVs out fainting again. So deathly tired (never in my life was so tired), I agreed. Didn't want to die there in an orthopedic cage ("Fourth of July" military hospital system anyone?).

I got 2 bags of whole blood. Dodged the...

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