BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS, infuriating true story of the consequences of untrammeled greed

BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS: How Greedy Companies, Inept Bureaucracy, and Bad Science Killed Thousands of Hemophiliacs
ERIC WEINBERG & DONNA SHAW
Rutgers University Press
$26.95 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: By the mid-1980s, over half the hemophiliacs in the United States had become infected with HIV. Blood on Their Hands reveals the toxic combination of corporate greed, governmental complacency, and medical negligence that exacerbated this public health disaster.

A few short years after HIV first entered the world blood supply in the late 1970s and early 1980s, over half the hemophiliacs in the United States were infected with the virus. But this was far more than just an unforeseeable public health disaster. Negligent doctors, government regulators, and Big Pharma all had a hand in this devastating epidemic.

Blood on Their Hands is an inspiring, firsthand account of the legal battles fought on behalf of hemophiliacs who were unwittingly infected with tainted blood. As part of the team behind the key class action litigation filed by the infected, young New Jersey lawyer Eric Weinberg was faced with a daunting task: to prove the negligence of a powerful, well-connected global industry worth billions. Weinberg and journalist Donna Shaw tell the dramatic story of how idealistic attorneys and their heroic, mortally-ill clients fought to achieve justice and prevent further infections. A stunning exposé of one of the American medical system’s most shameful debacles, Blood on Their Hands is a rousing reminder that, through perseverance, the victims of corporate greed can sometimes achieve great victory.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I was there for the AIDS years. I lost the love of my life to AIDS. It was harrowing to see people who did not have the option to avoid infection (after we knew what transmitted the virus) by using condoms then contract and die horribly from the awful virus's depredations. Author Weinberg was a lawyer seeking compensation for families and what few survivors there were in the 1990s. If ever there was a class of truly innocent victims, this group is it.

The way the virus entered these unfortunate sufferers was inescapable. It is a requirement of life as a hemophiliac that, to survive long term, you received donated blood products from normal donors to enable your body to form normal blood. The path to infection of these victims ran right through the corporate boardrooms where for-profit blood banks chose to accept donations from people using drugs. I absolutely know of my own personal knowledge that gay men were unable to donate blood, which would've widened the pool of donors. It was inevitable that a blood-borne infection, one unscreened for and untested for in the blood products harvested, would eventually cause the infection all dreaded as a death sentence at that time.

In the name of profits, lives were gambled with; predictably, those lives were lost.

The "regulatory state" that the incoming (as of 2024) US administration rails against ignored the risks these greedy entities were taking with people who had no choice, no alternative, no voice in or power over the risks their continuing lives required them to take. Author Weinberg and his cohort of counselors acted to force the casino of lives to close, though it took a lot longer than it should have.

The stakes that were paid by the deaths by those without a say in the gambles they were forced to take are currently under threat of being made useless. We're being forced back into a time where we have no say in the rollback of regulations that save lives. Greed like that of the insurance industry currently making news is causing outrage. That's great.

BUT WE HAVE FOUGHT THESE FIGHTS, AND WON THEM, BEFORE. Those victories and protections are the ones in the sights of the profit-motivated incoming administration.

Do not sit idly by as the gains we've won, that have demonstrably saved lives, evaporate in the all-consuming heat of greed and lust for profits. Call your congressional office in the Capitol or the local constituent services office. I realize that takes effort, and the way to say what needs saying isn't in everyone's capabilities. Using 5calls.org will make the process as painless as it's possible to be. The needed numbers, even a script to follow if you're phone-phobic, are all there.

The stakes are too high to sit feeling helpless, or to think "I won't make a difference" or any other excuse. All voices count. Your representatives at every level are *required* to listen to you.

Make them earn their money. Just like you have to.