("Quid coniuratio est?")
AIDS: What the Government Isn't Telling You
by Lorraine Day, M.D.
(Part 3)
As previously noted, HIV infection may occur at least 35 months before antibodies can be detected. This means that, since a test for antibodies is used to determine whether donated blood is accepted or not by the blood banks, someone with an early stage HIV infection, who therefore would pass the blood screening tests because antibodies do not show up immediately, can easily donate blood. This means that our blood supply is still infected, though to what extent is not known.
Not to say that "blood bankers" are all that picky about blood donors anyway. Dr. Day includes the following passage, written by an anonymous blood banker:
The story has been "community spirit" for the good of the community -- with no self-gain by those employed by the blood bank.
In actuality, no blood bank in the United States has ever gone bankrupt. They have all been profitable. They do not distribute their profits to the shareholders, (i.e. the public) but they certainly pay themselves handsome salaries with significant "perks."
The only concern the fresh blood provider has is this: "How can I get enough donors?" There is no trouble getting enough customers -- i.e., every captive hospital in his territory is a customer. While self-limiting in the sense that there are a finite number of hospitals and a finite number of patients which may use a finite amount of blood, any business can operate profitably in a "known market" -- particularly if monopolizing 100% of that market.
The limited source of donors, however, is a different matter. The fresh blood sector uses one basic recruiting method which I refer to as the "guilt trip." There was a time when other motivations were used -- that is, reduction in the hospital bill, free lunches, free dinners, grocery certificates, cash, etc. This is not so much done anymore.
One inducement other than the "laying on of guilt" is still used today, although reduced somewhat by the currently strained economics {1} of our society. Many unions include in their contracts with employers the stipulation that if a union member donates blood to the local blood provider, that employee gets half a day (or a full day) off of work with pay. This is particularly prevalent with government employees. Some inducement to donate may be pure pressure and competitiveness -- that is, between groups, departments, etc.
Nevertheless, the basic message is the implication: "You are a terrible person if you don't help your fellow man who's going to die unless he gets your blood."
As expected, it is increasingly difficult for the fresh blood sector to recruit donors. As a result, blood banks do not want to reject donors for "minor" reasons -- for example, mild infection, fast pulse, swollen lymph nodes, etc.
While every attempt is made to see that a donor qualifies within the limits set by law, no blood banks attempt to apply higher standards than those required by law. Safer blood products at the expense of losing donors is resisted and justified on the grounds that a shortage of blood is more dangerous than the "long odds" of acquiring a blood- borne infection.
Donors are treated with kid gloves so as not to offend them. The blood bankers have resisted performing physical examinations which can be time-consuming or may reject and embarrass donors. The only driving force behind a blood bank's operation is " -- we do not want to lose donors."
This economic factor is particularly important in understanding the basis of the lack of action of the fresh blood sector in 1983-85 and their almost criminally late recognition of the fact that AIDS can be transmitted by blood.
Dr. Day charges that although the blood banks knew early on that AIDS could be transmitted via the blood, they still did not screen out homosexuals at risk for AIDS for the simple reason that this would have cost them money to recruit new donors.
In 1987, it came to light that one of the blood banks had known for 2 years that their previous calculations regarding the risk of AIDS transmission from blood transfusion was not, as they had been saying, between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 250,000, but 1 in 100. For hemophiliacs needing more frequent transfusions, the chances were even worse. According to the San Francisco Examiner, "fear of AIDS hysteria" was why the secret was kept for so long.
"While blood bankers and health officials sat on precedent and protocol so as not to 'panic the public,' anyone infected through a transfusion could have transmitted the virus."
Of course, no one who knew they were infected with HIV would still go ahead and donate blood, right? Wrong. Consider the following from the Dallas Gay News, May 20, 1983:
There has come the idea that if research money (for AIDS) is not forthcoming at a certain level by a certain date, all gay males should give blood... Whatever action is required to get national attention is valid. If that includes blood terrorism, so be it.
Even today, blood banks do not test for the AIDS virus. "There is no routinely available blood test that targets the virus directly." Instead, tests are done for the antibodies to the virus. Yet, as already mentioned, it can take up to 35 months after infection has occurred before the antibodies appear.
And consider this: We also have to import much of our blood supply from places such as Mexico, which has even less stringent testing of its blood supply than we do.
Dr. Day ends this chapter by offering a quote from one C. S. Lewis:
The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of crime that Dickens loved to paint... it is conceived and moved, seconded, carried and minuted in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.
--------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------- {1} "...the currently strained economics of our society." Currently strained economics? Not to worry, according to Clinton's secretary of labor, professor Robert Reich, formerly of Harvard University. Why all we need to do, according to the learned professor, is provide more job training! We already have Rutgers graduates finding no better employment than tending bar, so what can Reich be thinking of? What should we train people to be? Harvard professors, so that they, in turn, can produce more Harvard professors?!
I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
"Justice" = "Just us" = "History is written by the assassins."