News
"Bad Blood" film documents tragedy of tainted US blood supply in 1970s-1990s
New York, NY – The documentary film “Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale,” will premiere Wednesday in New York City as the launch of a theatrical screening series co-hosted by a coalition of national gay rights and hemophilia advocacy groups.
The film documents the tragic history surrounding the discovery of HIV and hepatitis in the US blood supply in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
Through the eyes of survivors and family members, “Bad Blood” chronicles how a miracle treatment for hemophilia became an agent of death for 10,000 Americans.
In the 1980s, nearly 90% of Americans with severe hemophilia, a rare bleeding disorder, became infected with HIV or hepatitis from contaminated blood-based medications. More than half have since died.
Wednesday’s screening will be followed by a panel discussion. Later screenings are planned in New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC.
Says filmmaker Marilyn Ness, “Each of us owes the hemophilia community a debt of gratitude for their unintended and tragic role in alerting the country to the contamination of the US blood supply with HIV and hepatitis from the 1970s through the 1990s.”
The sponsor groups include Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), Committee of Ten Thousand (COTT), Hemophilia Federation of America (HFA), National Hemophilia Foundation (NHF), and World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH).
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The Health and Human Services (HHS) Blood Safety Committee voted last month to recommend research and review of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) longstanding deferral of all men who have had sex with another man (MSM) from donating blood.
Earlier this year, 17 Congressmen led by US Sen. John Kerry, D-MA, approached the FDA to reconsider the deferral of MSM blood donors. When the Blood Safety Committee convened to consider the recommendation, GMHC along with other AIDS Alliance members and the plasma-users coalition – organizations with a strong commitment to the safety of the nation’s blood supply – issued a joint statement urging the FDA to recommend any scientific research that is necessary to allow for the thoughtful consideration of alternative policies regarding donor deferral.
