Thanks for watching, check out me other bits! Outro song: kzread.info/dash/bejne/kWuVzsZrfLW4qto.html Instagram: instagram.com/plainly.john/ Patreon: www.patreon.com/Plainlydifficult Merch: plainly-difficult.creator-spring.com Twitter:twitter.com/Plainly_D

@holyassbutts

9 ай бұрын

Thanks John, as always, for a great video! Your attention to detail on these subjects does not go unnoticed or unappreciated. It's important we revisit these things to bring attention to the younger generations of this shit. For instance, I wasn't even aware of this tragedy. So thank you for opening my eyes to this one. Appreciated ♥️

@Nobe_Oddy

9 ай бұрын

I'm pretty sure you spelled hemophilia wrong @ 3:09 ..... you spelled it haemophilia .... there only 1 'a' - :/ - sorry, not trying to be a jerk, just letting you know for the next time you make a video about blood LOL -EDIT- I apologize.... I didn't know it could be spelled the way you used it.. maybe it's spelled your way in Britain and my way in the US, and that even comes through in my spellcheck in my browser..... sorry bro... :/ .. I really wanted to just be helpful.. my bad LOL - I learned SO MUCH from this video!! I had no idea how bad the whole thing really was .... I never though that companies would choose profits over customer safety... they would NEVER do that these days... it's not like they would "FORCE" vax's on the entire planet despite not knowing the side effects and then STILL PUSH PARENTS TO GIVE IT TO THEIR CHILDREN here in the US while the REST OF THE WORLD has basically stopped using it... that would NEVER happen because pharmaceutical companies are SOOO TRUSTWORTHY... and they would NEVER help facilitate the SPREAD of HIV/AIDS to unsuspecting patients... this must be a mistake ;) lol

@bsadewitz

9 ай бұрын

It would have been better if you had placed a speech bubble above the vein which read "Balls!". It's a motif Ive grown rather fond of.

@bsadewitz

9 ай бұрын

Oh, also, I have a suggestion for a video which i don't think you've done: the Elixir of Sulfanilamide scandal in the US (1937). en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_sulfanilamide

@indigohammer5732

9 ай бұрын

You should look into the Armley Asbestos disaster, or The Boots gas mask workers

I remember how awful Ryan White (a hemophiliac) and his family were treated by their neighbors and community because he caught HIV from a transfusion in 1984. He was only 13 years old and the vandalism of his home and the hate from his neighbors was really awful. The reaction of his community unmasked how people really felt about HIV and gay people.

@smittykins

9 ай бұрын

I remember reading about comedian Sam Kinison allegedly going on a homophobic rant during one of his stand ups, and at one point yelled “Name me one straight person with AIDS.” Someone in the audience replied “Ryan White.” After a pause, Kinison said “OK, you got me.”

@krissteel4074

9 ай бұрын

It was a whole other level of terror in the community, the media mostly to blame for not portraying any sympathetic aspects to it and governments themselves just didn't know what to do. Literally, you had AIDS in the 1980s and 1990's you got a trifecta- you got the gay, you're positive and you're a pariah. Growing up during that era for myself, it was genuinely scary to know people who died from it and they were not all gay, promiscuous or intravenous drug users- a heck of a lot were. But there was also a lot of just ordinary people who got a death sentence straight out of hospital for no fault of their own.

@elijahherstal776

9 ай бұрын

@@krissteel4074 my dude, when AIDS was running rampant- they couldn't get perverts at Studio 54 to stop having butt-breaching orgies and it got so out of hand, they almost activated the National Guard to lock it down. Everyone begged and pleaded with the gay community to just kinda chill out for a bit and use some precautions, but what could have been relatively limited turned into an epidemic because dudes couldn't keep their bare dicks out of other dues' bare buttholes. It runs rampant among gays for a reason- mostly biological/medical reasons. But I've had a gay dude tell me, with a straight face, that being HIV/AIDS positive doesn't mean you can't have unprotected sex. And apparently this is a very common thing that is said, and that really told me all I needed to know about gays. I don't hate them, I just would rather not associate with them and leave them in peace.

@drshoe8744

9 ай бұрын

Well humans are Idiots, and the mob-mentality is a very real and dangerous phenomenon.

@LemonDawn1

9 ай бұрын

​@@krissteel4074I grew up in that time too and I get what you're saying, but getting AIDS and being gay, liking sex, or being addicted to drugs is not the person's fault. The issue isn't that media didn't talk enough about people who society viewed as blameless, the issue is they talked about the people in these categories as if they deserved it.

As a Factor VIII hemophiliac (now 71 and one of a handful of survivors from that generation) who lived through this entire era, I can state this video is 100% accurate. I dodged the AIDS bullet because I was initially unable to learn how to self-infuse concentrate and continued to use cryo from volunteer donors infused in hospital out-patient visits (cryo required a huge needle). I didn't start self-infusing concentrate until after the recombinant product became available. It's still ungodly expensive as the Factor VIII is produced by transformed Chinese hamster ovary cells (really) an aerobic process. Most synthetic products are produced by transformed E. coli cells, an anaerobic process and much cheaper to do. I did contract Hep C, but fortunately it became acute at the time treatments were in development. I took interferon for a year and was cured. There are now even more effective Hep C treatments using a cocktail of several drugs. I don't usually share personal information online, but was so impressed by this episode I felt the need to step up and endorse it.

@raul92a

9 ай бұрын

hello blood brother/sister hemophilia A severe here how do you deal with pain? also how are your joints? have you gotten surgeries to fix any damage done over the years? last and more important it's not talked about in the foundations about painkiller addiction and just wondering what have you seen over the years?

@johnortmann3098

9 ай бұрын

My level is about 3%, which is moderate. However, both ankles and elbows are pretty trashed due to separate accidents that turned them into chronic problem joints before there was any treatment. I did have the head of the radius sawed off in '95 in my left elbow and regained some use of that arm. I was advised to use aspirin even into the '70s, which didn't help. I don't use anything as a rule, just tough it out, although I can no longer walk off of a flat, smooth surface. I had some problems with alcohol when I was much younger (useless as a painkiller by the way) so I naturally have steered clear of anything addictive. The ironic part of all this is that most of my life I did things that would be considered dangerous for anybody and never got a scratch. My joints were all damaged in stupid random accidents that would have been trivial in anybody else. I have a couple of nephews who inherited it, but they've benefited from modern treatment from birth and should avoid a similar outcome. Personally I chose not to have children to prevent passing it on. Hope you're doing as well as possible and have access to modern treatment.@@raul92a

@shawnsparks75

9 ай бұрын

48 : Factor VIII DEFICIENCY 🤘🏾🫡

@shawnsparks75

9 ай бұрын

@@johnortmann3098Less than 1% here🙋🏾‍♂️48 Mom was diligent with immediate infusion’s when I was young. Horrible knees & ankles but was able to rehab with long acting treatment. 🤘🏾.

@agentmueller

9 ай бұрын

I’m on mavyret right now for hep c and it’s definitely working after just a month. Labs are already back to normal, however the price throws me everytime I see it, that shit is 17k a month cash, luckily insurance pays

I worked for a day in a hemophiliac clinic in 2004. Almost all of the patients were Hep C positive. They may have been 35 or 15, but they had at some point received infected factor products.

@selcatron

9 ай бұрын

ed nurse here only ones who arent tend to be babies/children

@itsmebernie

9 ай бұрын

Omg

@GuyChapman

9 ай бұрын

Can confirm. I work at the Royal Free.

@pickles3128

9 ай бұрын

Former heroin addict here. HIV is not a big problem as it can't live outside the body for long. But for some reason the BS is spread through rehabs/NA that used needles give you Hep C, so almost all IV drug users have it. No, SHARING needles can, re-using your OWN needles doesn't. But they think it somehow randomly manifests and grows. Of course reusing means it's no longer sterile & should be avoided, but it is NOT Hep positive. Used for 8 years, never shared needles, h2o etc, no matter how dopesick. Always tested negative. Don't they have a cure now though?

@1TakoyakiStore

9 ай бұрын

😢

It's a shame that pharmaceutical companies aren't held to the 'first do no harm' standard, and are allowed to put profits above all else.

@ovinedreamer1451

9 ай бұрын

If we applied the same laws, standards and ethics on any pharma or medical device company that we do on doctors the world would be a better place.

@theglitch99

9 ай бұрын

They have enough wealth to buy lobiest and politicians! The ppl who make the rules up are for sale! The current "President" is proof of that!

@benibluefoe

9 ай бұрын

Big pharma has no standard as the rich men who own the big pharma companies are greedy and they have no morals. They have purchased our law makers and courts, so the rich are protected from treating us with respect, dignity, and fairness. The only time a wealthy oerson gains "morals" is because they are directly affected and that moral outrage is only for themselves. As long as we allow the wealthy to treat us like garbage, we will be abused. The only way to stop the wealthy is by taking our govt from their greedy hands and put policy in place to protect us from their greed. If you think that won't work, look at unions. Unions are the only way we have been able to protect ourselves from the greedy and unbelievably selfish rich.

@juliepiemonte3268

9 ай бұрын

Their motto is "first make a ton of money."

@xx133

9 ай бұрын

Capitalism is wonderful, isn’t it?

A close family member of mine was a victim of this scandal, felled by AIDS from contaminated blood products, in what should have been his prime. There has been no justice for our family, in spite of the clear connection between the tainted plasma and his HIV infection. Thank you for covering this too-little-known feature of the AIDS crisis.

@J.C...

9 ай бұрын

This was for Factor VIII for hemophiliacs though? Is that the same thing?

@LittleDickJohnson

9 ай бұрын

Did you call a law firm and get compensation? If so congratulations on your millions

@MyHandelsMessiah

9 ай бұрын

@@J.C..."contaminated blood products" You think factor VII is _not_ a blood product??? Improve your reading comprehension, then try again.

@TheGelasiaBlythe

9 ай бұрын

​@J.C... hi, blood banker here. I work with hemophiliacs and hand out factor on the reg. All factor is derived from cryoprecipitate. You take the cryoprecipitate (although, these days, we know that you get a better yield if you don't actually freeze plasma to get it; instead you get it really cold and it "precipitates" out - like a snow globe - of the plasma. The plasma is spun down in a refrigerated centrifuge, and the cryoprecipitate is removed), abd then it is fractionated into the different factors. FVIII is just one factor of many derived from this process, and FVII, FVIII, VwF (vonWillebrand's factor), FIX are the ones I commonly see, though we provide others as needed. Some odd facts: A clotting disorder that many Caucasians (and some others) have throughout their lives is called Factor V Leiden mutation. It causes hypercoagulation - too much clotting. They produce Factor V, but it works incorrectly so that clots are not broken back down the way they need to be. It causes strokes, pulmonary embolism, and blood clots in the extremities, among other issues. It's easy to be tested, but most people don't know to ask for it. Also, plenty of people - male and female - will become hemophiliacs later in life. Factor deficiencies can occur as adults; sometimes people have plenty of a particular factor in their bloodstream, but they can make antibodies to that factor, rendering it essentially useless. We have an antibody concentrate aimed at those most common factor antibodies available.

@sunettas9738

9 ай бұрын

I'm sorry for your loss

My father was a hemophiliac as were his sisters 5 sons-they all contracted HIV from tainted blood product. The 5 sons all died as well as their wives and 3 children born because they had not been informed of the issue. This wiped out an entire generation in our family-and yes my father did die of complications as well. My mother did receive a settlement about 10 years later.

@ljre3397

9 ай бұрын

Dear lord what a horrible time. I remember the fear and hate of the ‘80s and ‘90s. A terrible time people had to endure thanks mostly to Reagan.

@prettyclassylady6218

8 ай бұрын

​@@ljre3397What did Reagan have to do with AIDS? He wasn't a scientist or a doctor

Another scandal linked to this was that of French companies selling known HIV tainted blood products meant for for transfusion to poorer countries. While there was a court case against those responsible for knowingly selling these products, it was considered a sham by the victims of their negligence and very lirtle consolation for the impact it'd have on their lives.

@FIRING_BLIND

9 ай бұрын

They KNEW it was infected??? It'd been tested?

@VonVikoGoat

9 ай бұрын

apparently the one company who was selling a lot of HIV infected blood products was Bayer, specially in Latin America

@elnalaombrebois5665

9 ай бұрын

The scandals liked to contaminated blood in france are an abominable shitshow. There where some heavily implicated politics who got away whit almost nothing...

@Dilley_G45

9 ай бұрын

It wasn't just poorer countries. Many white westerners got tainted blood too. They knew some blood might have been contaminated. They still said "use up.the old stuff", the old stuff being untested

@Xhumed

9 ай бұрын

Given how the French dealt with BSE (or JCB, given how they just buried infected cattle without quarantine, whilst blocking all British imports), I'm not surprised at the shady practices here.

You know what would be a breath of fresh air? A person, agency or company taking actual responsible accountability for the wrongs they do. I mean, it seems like our society and leaders will only call the common person to task, giving the rich and powerful a pass. Anything to avoid setting a precedent that might come around to bite them later. It is disgusting.

@FustFPV

9 ай бұрын

I agree the companies were evil in this case and im not defending them. But from a moral thought experiment stand point. A guy gets rushed in after an accident and is bleeding to death. Do you... A: Use blood that has a chance of giving the patient a disease or illness that will end their life in a few years or decades. B: Let them bleed out and die on the spot. Option A you get sued and seen as the villain, but you get to live with yourself knowing you at least saved their life and gave them 20 more years with their family. Option B you have to live with yourself knowing you could of saved them and given them a few more years with their loved ones, but instead you watched the life leave their body. Now as the company who makes it. If you only have stock A which has a 1 in 3 chance of giving the patient a disease and it will take a month to make and dispatch a new untainted batch B, do you... A: Throw out all the stock and let everyone die from bleeding to death with no blood available to give them for the next month. B: Use the batch that gives them a 1 in 3 chance of contracting a disease that will kill them in 20 years, but they get to not die today and live another 20 years with their loved ones.

@user-up8jx3mt6j

9 ай бұрын

​@@FustFPVFigures. You missed your calling. In a nutshell, there is virtually nothing in this world that happens, good or bad, where there does not exist some contrary motive to explain it. All that need be done comes down to creating spurious mitigating factors and suddenly something clearly wrong becomes the favorite course of action. People are unbelievable.

@Findecommie

9 ай бұрын

@@FustFPV That's not at all what happened though. They knew for years their products could make people seriously ill and instead of scrambling to develop safer alternatives as soon as they realized what was happening or even taking measures to screen out infected donors they downplayed the risks, confident that it wouldn't hurt their profits too much since the only alternative their customers had was to just bleed out. Then an even deadlier disease emerged that had the same route of transmission and they *still* dragged their feet for almost a decade. You don't get to ignore an oncoming crisis and then when it hits and people get mad at you cry that you're doing your best. The shortage of untainted medicine was a deliberate production choice. Real life doesn't work like a philosophy 101 trolley problem where the dilemma just appears without context, someone somewhere is responsible for routing the trains and ought to be held accountable when they run people over

@dwaynezilla

9 ай бұрын

it's up to the people to hold them accountable, and they're too distracted with bullshit narratives.

@jesseteixeira6284

9 ай бұрын

That's impossible. Corporations are literally a means for people to deflect responsibility.

This whole thing is so close to my life. We had a family friend who died of AIDS because of this and our grief was amplified by all the news about Ryan White who lived nearby. I remember nurses refusing to touch my friend so my mom and I helped bathe and groom her. People in the neighborhood shunned us because we were "tainted" and one even tried to have me taken away because I was supposedly being endangered. The 80s was a really horrific time when it comes to these things. For those of us who were affected, it has carried through our whole lives. For about a decade it was just funeral after funeral after funeral but when you came to others with your grief you were told the dead deserved it.

@sophierobinson2738

9 ай бұрын

I could never understand anyone “deserving” death because they were gay, or because of an illness. Deserving death for murdering someone, yes. I has gay friends, good, kind people.

@ItsJustLisa

9 ай бұрын

@@sophierobinson2738, just imagine if those sh*tty people had had the internet and social media to broadcast their hateful rhetoric. Those are the same people that refused to sit on toilet seats because they’d get AIDS from them and still 40 years later won’t sit and then bitch that it’s because “there’s always pee all over the seats”. And it’s they who are the ones peeing all over the toilet seats!

@ItsJustLisa

9 ай бұрын

I’m so sorry that your friend was treated that way. She was lucky to have you and your mom to treat her with compassion and kindness.

@batsheva7819

8 ай бұрын

My sister died from receiving tainted blood in 1985. She was a year old. My parents weren't informed and kept vaccinating vaccinating her, not knowing why she was becoming sick every time. When they finally figured out, she was too sick and died

@suzbone

8 ай бұрын

@@batsheva7819 how AWFUL. Deepest, deepest condolences. 🙏

My husband's father was a hemophiliac who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion in the 80s and passed away when he (my husband) was young. This was a horrific health disaster.

@DaveGreg100

9 ай бұрын

My Dad asked me if that was possible with my Grandfather. I worked in West Hollywood from 1982 till 2010. I recognized the signs: wasting, Kaposi's Sarcoma, dementia, confusion. He was concerned, since he was taking care of my Grandfather, if he could be exposed to AIDS. I knew the minute I saw what it was. I'd seen it on the daily for years. But forget all that!!!! Try some botox!!! And Phen -Phen!!! /sarc I trust no Pharma claims, nor Big Med these days

@suzbone

9 ай бұрын

What a tragedy... so long gone, but not forgotten 🙏 💔

@leeknight5462

9 ай бұрын

My husbands father also died after contracting hepatitis through a tainted blood transfusion in the 80's. We live in Canada, it's sad that so many people, all over the world, lost their lives to greed. 😢

@shaynewheeler9249

9 ай бұрын

Blood donation

@iloveisrael2943

8 ай бұрын

He was a weaklings

As someone living with HIV, I really appreciate you talking about this. Very few people have talked about it, and almost all of the people who did this suffered no consequences for their actions. Full disclosure, I did not get HIV from *this*. I got it by being a gay dude in his early 20s in the 2000's who was also a drug addict. (I have been 100% clean since 2014, btw.) This is often why I tell people "don't be me." That was me being irresponsible. But this? This? This was people murdering others for the sake of profit. My view is prison would be too good for them.

@FustFPV

9 ай бұрын

I agree the companies were evil in this case and im not defending them. But from a moral thought experiment stand point. A guy gets rushed in after an accident and is bleeding to death. Do you... A: Use blood that has a chance of giving the patient a disease or illness that will end their life in a few years or decades. B: Let them bleed out and die on the spot. Option A you get sued and seen as the villain, but you get to live with yourself knowing you at least saved their life and gave them 20 more years with their family. Option B you have to live with yourself knowing you could of saved them and given them a few more years with their loved ones, but instead you watched the life leave their body. Now as the company who makes it. If you only have stock A which has a 1 in 3 chance of giving the patient a disease and it will take a month to make and dispatch a new untainted batch B, do you... A: Throw out all the stock and let everyone die from bleeding to death with no blood available to give them for the next month. B: Use the batch that gives them a 1 in 3 chance of contracting a disease that will kill them in 20 years, but they get to not die today and live another 20 years with their loved ones.

@Sniperboy5551

9 ай бұрын

@FustFPV Based, I agree. It’s far more nuanced than it initially seems.

@dragontoothless4351

9 ай бұрын

Add to it that when the HIV/AIDS situation began to be in the public spotlight in the mid 80s through late 90s, a lot of ignorance from the masses meant people with HIV were treated much like the Trans community today. Indeed, even if one caught HIV by means other than sexual acts with someone of the same gender, it didn't matter to the public at large. They were still thought of as gay and ostracized by their communities, especially with things like water fountains at school and the fervent belief that HIV could be obtained by drinking from the same fountain as someone who was HIV positive.

@jatnarivas8741

9 ай бұрын

I'm sorry you went through the wrong path before, and I'm glad to hear that you decided to make better choices and are making them every day. Stay strong in spirit!

@okboomer6201

9 ай бұрын

🤮

The executives who knowingly sold infected or likely infected treatments like this should have been taken to trial for first degree murder for each of the victims who were infected. They might not have directly held the weapon that ended so many lives, but they certainly aimed it and gave the order.

@laurigardner6227

9 ай бұрын

The thing is. Most of them had good connections to politicians and it was hard to put political pressure when politicians would be hired by these pharmaceutical companies once they retired from politics.

@Sum-kj8jo

9 ай бұрын

Wood chipper

@cat637d

7 ай бұрын

Manually cranked! @@Sum-kj8jo

Fun fact, I have hemophilia A, factor 8 deficiency. I had a bad bleed after getting my wisdom teeth out (almost bled to death), and had to get human Factor 8. My father grilled the doctor about how safe it was (this was 1993). My dad flat out asked ‘would you give it to your kid?’ And the doctor looked down, thought, then looked at my dad and just said ‘yes’. I got the factor, with no other ‘ingredients’.

@bsadewitz

9 ай бұрын

Just as an aside, I figured out that a way to get referrals to good doctors instead of just being asked to choose one from some list is to tell the doctor, "I would like a referral to whoever you would send a family member to if they were in my situation."

@bsadewitz

9 ай бұрын

It makes them pause and really think about it.

@bsadewitz

9 ай бұрын

I suspect your father, in that moment, with no time to do any investigation of his own, reasoned it out and came to the same conclusion as to what to do.

@raul92a

9 ай бұрын

hello fellow blood brother/sister hope your hanging in there. i was born in the early 90s and i was told about everything that went on and how few hemophiliacs there were at that time. nurses and doctors had no clue how to deal with me whenever we would go into the er due to a joint bleed.

@m0o0n0i0r

9 ай бұрын

treatment for Haemophilia A is changing a lot. I was allergic to human factor so had to go on recombinant. I have taken part in a gene therapy trial - was dosed in 2019, not had a bleed since. I go to checkups and my f8 is monitored, plus my liver function which turn out normal. As my own cells are making the f8, no allergies. Have been told that it wont be available on the NHS due to alternative treatments that might be more cost effective, but the company has a license. But hopefully it will be soon an option as costs come down

I was a new nurse in 1992 when HIV was new to the public and wearing gloves was for surgery. There was a huge fear of HIV but few (even caregivers) saw the general public as a threat. Thanks for covering this topic.

@oldesertguy9616

9 ай бұрын

I was a cop when Aids started becoming known. Prior to that, getting blood on you was considered a nuisance. I remember the complete change in procedures and all the back and forth about confidentiality.

@swampcat0712

9 ай бұрын

my mother was an RN back in the 80s. she worked at a big hospital in New Orleans and when they still hadn't publicly announced how you caught this thing, it was scary. my brother had a life-threatening accident which required 16 units of blood. but my mom is great in a crisis. she immediately called the family - we have a huge family - and we all donated blood for my brothers upcoming surgery. she seemed to know. of course, we didn't know he would need 16 units of blood during the surgery, but it was there and then some when they put parts of his body back together for the surgeries. he was in intensive care for 6 weeks. my stepdad was one of the ignoramuses out there. he demanded that my mom quit her job immediately! of course, she didn't. it's hard to think of it being new in '92, because we had been on the forefront of that thing through my mom since the mid 80s, but I guess it was.

@jwenting

9 ай бұрын

@@swampcat0712It was known for a long time that HIV could be transmitted through blood transfusions. It took longer for it to become publicly known that the main vector was sexual intercourse, ESPECIALLY homosexual sexual intercourse. And that was in no small part because nobody wanted to be seen as "homophobic" by stating the blatantly obvious fact that HIV infections were sky high in the homosexual male community, far more so than in any other sector of western society. Result was that homosexuals freely donated HIV infected blood, which was then not rejected because it wasn't tested. After all, testing the blood from a homosexual was homophobic (yes, the political correctness was that bad that lives were deliberately put at risk for fear of being seen as politically incorrect). Eventually the truth could no longer be ignored, but that took a decade. And then in 2020 this idiocy was essentially repeated when it was decided that pointing the fingers squarely at China as the source of Covid19 was "racist" and therefore unacceptable, with a pandemic as a result that could have been avoided by closing the borders to that country and quarantining everyone coming from there for a month after arrival.

@MarianneKat

9 ай бұрын

@@swampcat0712 relatively new, a lot still wasn't known and universal precautions was being introduced. We had been taught all throughout school that we needed to wear gloves and why. Most nurses at that time were hesitant to embrace gloves until some developed HIV. Needle pokes were more common cuz needles were everywhere. (Now we have valves, etc.) My mother graduated nursing school in 1963, they were taught NOT to wear gloves to empty ostomies, etc cuz you would make the patient feel 'dirty'. Glad your brother had an amazing family for his recovery.

@swampcat0712

9 ай бұрын

@@MarianneKat thank you for your reply. my mom always wore gloves with patients, doing IVs, shots, etc... but she felt the same way about masks - unless someone was immunocompromised. she felt it was too impersonal. but in the 80s, there was a period where they weren't positive about how it was transmitted. can you imagine what those poor people went through??!! High profile people helped educate the public (God knows the government didn't). people like Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson helped in that regard. my mother was a special person, as I'm sure you are. to be a nurse, you have to really be a different sort, the best of humanity. I chose to become an engineer because I needed something more impersonal. I'm too empathic and yeah, you know what I'm saying. thank you for being you.

As someone who works in blood banking this kinda hits close to home. Unfortunately my industry fought mandatory testing tooth and nail and a lot of people died who didn’t have to because of our negligence during the beginning of the HIV crisis.

@FayeVert

6 ай бұрын

If you can find it, watch the PBS documentary "Red Gold". It goes really in depth on this issue.

Seventy-six PERCENT???? I remember those days and the fear do many had to take anything that could be contaminated. There were a few years in there when nobody knew what was going on and it felt like the Wild West in medicine. It didn't matter if you had a blood 🩸 disorder or not. That figure of 76% is simply stunning. To borrow a word, I'm gobsmacked.

My sister graduated high school in 1988. She had a classmate that was a hemophiliac. He contracted HIV from a blood transfusion and died of AIDS when he was in high school.

@TheGelasiaBlythe

9 ай бұрын

It's heartbreaking. This child never had a chance to live. The people who allowed this to happen for this long would have acted sooner if it happened to them.

@suzbone

9 ай бұрын

​@TheGelasiaBlythe I was in high school and college during the 80s and all these tragedies are exactly why my friends and I harbored absolutely *incandescent* hatred for both Ronald and Nancy Reagan. They turned their heads and did NOTHING about AIDS for years because they were OK with it killing us weirdos and f*gs. They didn't lift a finger till they realized it was killing precious straights, too. I'm so sorry for your loss 🙏 😔

One of my closest friends is a hemophiliac that was one of the very, very few that only had contracted hepatitis. Every other male in his family tree got hepatitis and HIV. He's the only living male in his family tree now, outside of his son.

IIRC Sir Isaac Asimov was a victim of this. He wasn't a Haemophiliac but due to transfused blood being used during a surgery he became infected with the HIV virus.

@igrim4777

9 ай бұрын

Just because it's now named after founder Damon Knight doesn't make the SWFA grand master award a knighthood besides which it wasn't renamed until after Asimov died.

Thanks for covering this, my mother got Hepatitis C in the 1980s from a contaminated blood transfusion. The Hepatitis eventually ruined her liver and lead to her passing.

@stevenlevernier7357

9 ай бұрын

So, you take those 26 vaccines?

@analyticalhabitrails9857

9 ай бұрын

Yup, fear not the Justice Departments on the case!

@Sugarblizz08

9 ай бұрын

I received tainted blood r/t ectopic pregnancy in 1981. I live a pretty normal life, but am tired a lot and had my first real liver attack that sent me to the hospital for 5 days 2 months ago.

@bioshawna

9 ай бұрын

​@@Sugarblizz08have you considered treatment? The newer meds are a lot more tolerable. Be well friend.

When I was young we had a family friend die in his 40s from an AIDS related illness, he was a haemophiliac and had contracted it from tainted blood products. He left behind a young daughter which was absolutely tragic. I do recall hearing a little about the Factor Eight scandal, but I never fully understood it at my age. I appreciate you putting this together and filling in some of the gaps.

Truly an awful tragedy. We have a (haemophiliac) family friend who was infected with hepatitis C due to the infected blood, and I believe his brother died of AIDS from it.

Thank you for covering this. It has been suggested that pharmaceutical companies deliberately delayed settling to reduce the number of people receiving compensation.

@katiekane5247

9 ай бұрын

And big pharma is still doing the same or worse. Lab rats need food & housing, people put in a state of fear will take unproven "treatments" all day long. They originally planned on disclosure over 75 years, ensuing victims wouldn't be around.

@shortking-vp9vv

9 ай бұрын

I have seldom read a more horrifying sentence.

@SewardWriter

9 ай бұрын

I'm not shocked. Disability makes people less valuable, less human. The patients were disposable so long as healthy execs got their cuts. Can you tell I'm a little bitter?

@strangelee4400

9 ай бұрын

There is nothing 'suggested' about it. Ask any corporate lawyer...it's standard practice to drag any payment out in the hope that the recipient dies in the meantime.

@jminsh463

9 ай бұрын

If that is the case, it should go to their families anyway. Dead or alive, it impacted the victim and their families. Companies shouldn't get away with it simply because they killed someone rather than just severely harming them!

The Ryan White story really scared me as a kid. They made a move about him with the aforementioned title. Also, I forgot to mention back in the day my dentist didn't wear gloves. Probably no one did and that coupled with the Ryan White stuff and everything in the news also terrified me

it wasn't "by accident". It was negligence, and greed.

@ayanned

9 ай бұрын

By both companies and gays and drug addicts. Blame them and hopefully they shall be solved to not infect others.

This is one of those, I remember the place I was, moments for me. I was a new nurse, and AIDS was very new. A nurse I worked with had a son with hemophilia and she had come to the realization that potentially her son had been infected with AIDS thru his medication. I can still picture the 2 of us standing there talking about this, and me not fully understanding what she was saying, I had probably not even heard of AIDS. I left that job, and to this day something like this video will come up and I think of him and wonder how he faired.

@thomasbaker6563

9 ай бұрын

The answer is badly, because basically no one survived it back then, but you knew this. The medical profession have and will continue to fail people, emotional please and such don't actually sort the issues, doing things right in the first place does. In this case the greatest guilt is clearly on the drugs companies, but failure to asses for cancers ant an early level kills people in the UK.

@lisaalane7694

9 ай бұрын

@thomasbaker6563 At the point of the conversation, she only knew there was contaminated medication. She had no idea if he had been exposed, and when I left that job, he had not been diagnosed with AIDS, so I have no idea what happened.

A parallel issue was took place in January 1983 at a CDC public meeting with the blood services industry, an event dramatized/covered in the HBO movie "And The Band Played On". At the meeting, the CDC presented good evidence HIV was blood-transmissible, and while there wasn't a test for it yet, they found testing for HepB was 88% effective in weeding out HIV-infected blood. In spite of their evidence, the blood services industry balked at the cost of testing for HepB and, at that time, refused to implement the recommended testing.

@ladyrazorsharp

9 ай бұрын

That’s appalling. Playing God with human lives. May those affected rest in peace.

@SewardWriter

9 ай бұрын

People with disabilities have never been considered equal to healthy people. Hemophiliacs were considered disposable. Hence, there was no reason to test.

@seanhartnett79

8 ай бұрын

True. Great film. The book is very long but worth reading as well.

@seanwebb605

7 ай бұрын

Not just a drama. It came from a non fiction book the same name. I once the met the epidemiologist from the CDC who put forward the recommendations.

As a hemophiliac, I appreciate you covering this for us. I was born after the crisis thankfully, but most of my mentors were not so lucky. I miss them, but will forever be grateful that they were able to help me and my family get my disorder under control.

I remember this or something like it happening in the US. Apparently I myself almost received a batch of blood tainted with HIV in the late 1980's. I was really young but my parents said the hospital caught the mistake shortly before I went into one of the many surgeries I have had throughout my life. The only thing I really remember was sitting in my bed and watching my two surgeons angrily pacing back and forth outside my ICU room (the door was wide open). Then without warning one of my surgeon's yells "this place is a ducking disgrace" and "you could have killed my patient..." He then picked up a chair and chucked it at a nurses station breaking a small window in the process. Following this set of unfortunate events had me immediately pulled and transferred to another hospital for surgery roughly 15 to 20 miles away. I was also told that I thought the entire ordeal was hilarious which wound up amusing both surgeons. I kept them as my surgeons for over 30 years until they retired. My new surgeon is good at what he does but he's just not as colorful or entertaining as my old ones. I really miss them.... Addendum- One wanted to beat me every time he saw me because I never follow orders. While the other encouraged my shenanigans. He would say "You did what now?! That's great man! Don't let anyone tell you can't because you absolutely can." No matter how stupid I was being (BMX freestyle, boxing, racing cars *track, playing football, ect...).

I had to do some of the federal level malpractice reports for the New England Compounding Center. I don't know if you've done a story on that incident, but I had to do write-ups for probably thousands of people who received contaminated spinal injections. My job was to report on the providers, and it was kind of heartbreaking to see some genuinely good doctors under hundreds of malpractice suits because a pharmacy shipped them contaminated drugs.

@turbocat1984

4 ай бұрын

Want to see a vid done on this next please!

Someone in my family needed a blood transfusion in the 80’s. Whoever was in charge of picking the bags in the hospital was apparently mildly told off for having picked the more expensive heated blood when the patient hadn’t a special need of it - and answered that the safest prodict was picked, period. Meanwhile, my relatve was confused fo a time, since the blood didn’t feel warm at all... (and later on, when realising what had been happening during that time, very relieved).

I have severe hemophilia B, and while being born after tainted medication it's definitely had a huge impact on my life. Thanks for telling the story so well as always

@raul92a

9 ай бұрын

i was also born after this scare but my parents were so afraid still after being told from nurses and doctos how many pairnes passed away. getting tested for these things all my childhood was intersting.

@shaynewheeler9249

9 ай бұрын

Food

@analyticalhabitrails9857

9 ай бұрын

This is despecable what they done to you!

@shaynewheeler9249

9 ай бұрын

Blood donation 🩸

I hope to go the rest of my life without ever hearing blood described as "creamy" again.

@RT-qd8yl

9 ай бұрын

Have you never had rabbit blood mixed with heavy cream and sugar?

@xsforreal

9 ай бұрын

​@@RT-qd8ylI must say that this is not a common experience

@mericagunsfreedomandlove.8985

9 ай бұрын

Creeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaammmy crimson

@anacrea3931

8 ай бұрын

The good news is your plasma isn't actually creamy. Unless you've eaten something fatty recently, in that case yeah, it is. "Frothy" is also a word I've used to describe lipemic plasma. If you're on hormonal birth control your plasma may also be green instead of yellow! I have yet to see frothy green plasma.

@seanhartnett79

8 ай бұрын

@@RT-qd8ylwhy eat that?

In the early 1980s, I went to college in a big city in the American midwest. We discovered the local plasma/platelet donation center. You could donate plasma every week (and get $10), but platelets only once a month (and get $30). Three classmates and I would go every week, and we'd take turns being the platelet donor (which took 4 times as long). We would then pool our $60 cash, and use it to go to movies, and get pizza and beer (the drinking age was 19 at the time, so it was legal). The people who worked at the donation center LOVED seeing us girls walk in every week, because, not to insult our fellow donors, but we were the only donors who were both showered and sober. The other donors reeked of cheap booze (there were a lot of empty bottles of "My Wild Irish Rose" and "Thunderbird" in the parking lot), and some were obviously high as well as drunk. I can only imagine what kind of microbial stew was produced from those plasma donations.

As someone who has donated blood on and off for a decade now, those questions they ask during screening always made sense before but I never knew they were a result of the "sign effect" (warnings are always put up for a reason). It'a awful that companies basically got away with ruining already sick people's lives.

Interesting to see you've covered this. A close friend was one of the UK victims. They died at the age of 26 because of this scandal. Disgusting that the British government won't even say sorry.

@JustSomeWeirdo

9 ай бұрын

The British don’t have human rights the same as way we do.

@LMB222

9 ай бұрын

That's typical of the UK government.

@seanhartnett79

8 ай бұрын

Basically if they said they were sorry. They would be sued.

One of my childhood friends was a hemophiliac and was infected with hiv via infected blood transfusion. He died at 18.

@iloveisrael2943

8 ай бұрын

Such Weaklings

My mum was a nurse in the early eighties, and these were some of the first cases of AIDS she encountered. She told me about it, but I never knew that there were big pharma companies actively ignoring the threat to make money. Makes a tragic story into a truly infuriating one.

An old friend (from the UK, ironically enough) has haemophilia. He had to let his wisdom teeth come in naturally (thankfully they were all properly aligned), since if he’d opted to have them removed, he’d have had to go to London for a several-hours surgery and receive something like, a dozen pints of blood. It makes me shudder to think, “What if we were living 20 years ago?” He had a falling out with the friend group (he turned out to be a slight ‘Nice Guy’), but I wonder about him occasionally and worry if he’s doing okay. It seems like a hellish disease to live with (let alone if you wind up with HIV or Hepatitis on top of it).

@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan

9 ай бұрын

Nice Guy

@shaynewheeler9249

9 ай бұрын

Blood donation

@orppranator5230

3 ай бұрын

What is a “slight nice guy”? Is that slang for a homosexual?

@stuffedninja1337

3 ай бұрын

@@orppranator5230 No no, when he had the falling out with the friend group, he was displaying some stereotypical “nice guy” behaviour, in that he felt like someone else in the group “owed” him a relationship because he was nice to her and they had common interests. He was livid when she started dating another friend, but thankfully he kinda divorced himself from the friend group, since it got REALLY awkward REALLY fast. I say “slight” since he left before things got into completely unhinged incel territory.

I learned about this in the late 90's from Bryce Courtenay's book about his son Damon. Damon was a haemophiliac and a victim of the infected blood product scandal. Following reading the book I delved a little deeper and was horrified by the stories but also the relative obscurity of the disaster.

Thank you for covering this. A friend from school who had haemophilia died in the early 2000s from complications due to HIV acquired from these treatments. I believe he acquired it in the 1980s. My friend, his parents and family must have worked extremely hard to keep his status from everyone and in hindsight it was the right thing to do because there was a huge fear and prejudice surrounding HIV/AIDS. We only discovered the news many years later when he passed away, prematurely. People forget now but Princess Diana meeting late stage AIDS patients and sharing a touch that helped make solicited realise that it was a disease spread via blood contact. It is shocking that UK Governments have not accepted responsibility for or compensated those whose lives were affected by this scandal. RIP D xxx

A true scandal and one that far to many have suffered from I am surprised how many people were not aware of it, thanks for making this I had not realised how complicit and downright nasty the companies profiting from it were and to still sell to poorer countries knowing the risk its an act of murder.

I wasn't just hemophiliacs, there was a point at which there was a big risk of the infected blood being given during operations. Three friends and I all had ops during this period following an rta. I remember quite clearly being told "You cannot donate blood", with no real explanation given. Then within a short time word got out and panic set in. Fortunately none of us were effected however, I put the shites up us for a little while. Lost a friend to AIDS related illness in the 90's, the stuff he had to put up with because he was homosexual was enough, when it became knowledge he was HIV+, it took it to a whole new level. People can be so disgusting to others just because of the lack of willingness to properly inform themselves.

@TheGelasiaBlythe

9 ай бұрын

There was this mainstream assumption that all gay people had HIV that persisted for WAY TOO LONG. It's as ridiculous as the Boy Scouts of America assuming that all gay men wanted young boys, so they couldn't be scoutmasters. Utterly ridiculous and unfair. I'm so happy that gay people and MSM can donate again!!

@sbcinema

9 ай бұрын

I vaguely remember it, there was a scandal with the German Red Cross not testing blood

@weaver22

8 ай бұрын

My dad had his hip replaced in the 80s and was advised to self bank his own blood before the surgery. He did so and found out that he had hepatitis C. It ruined his kiver and he died 10 years later from liver cancer. The source if the hepatitis C was a contaminated transfusion when he was in college.

@TheGelasiaBlythe

8 ай бұрын

@weaver22 I am so sorry for your loss. I'm sorry that medicine was too slow to save your father. It seems so unfair.

I know a lot of people that are still scared of getting blood transfusions today. Really destroyed a lot of people's trust.

Thank you for mentioning this story. I had a family member pass away long ago from AIDS, and it was suspected that they had received the disease from one of the blood products designed to treat hemophilia. This whole story is something that I already knew about, but there's such a good chance that not many others have heard it before. Thank you for spreading awareness of this horrific time in medical history! The whole AIDS crisis was a horrific event for everyone involved, and I'm glad that this aspect of it was covered!

Did a play about this issue in high school called the yellow boat. It’s about a hemophiliac child named Ben who got aids from a transfusion, the discrimination he experienced, and ultimately his death at only 8 years old. Based on true events.

My dad actually died due to infected blood transfusions, not HiV, but hepatitis C. He was involved in a motorcycle accident that almost killed him and took 3 years to recover from, and in the process got 8 different strains of the disease. After he was diagnosed he started a long road of treatment that eventully left him weak but virus free, but the damage to his body was already done, he ended up developing cancer in his damaged liver, which spread to his brain. I don't blame the doctors nad hospitals that gave him that blood, they didn't know and were just trying to save his life, and they gave us several more decades with him in the bargain.

@SewardWriter

9 ай бұрын

May your dad's memory be a blessing.

@skwervin1

9 ай бұрын

Huge hugs to you and your family

@tootallslim4085

9 ай бұрын

8 different strains of hepatitis C?

@therealrobertbirchall

9 ай бұрын

That's my story as well. I had a bike accident when i was 17, I'm 65 now and was diagnosed with HCV in 2008. Treatment is a long, hard road i feel for you and your family I have had 2 courses of interferon treatment dozens of varices banded, as well as the acites. I'm lucky the invention of Sovaldi and a liver transplant mean I survived. So sorry for your loss, though.

@Whitewingdevil

9 ай бұрын

97 total blood transfusions, 8 is the number I remember it could have been 6 or 7, he had just about every strain of hep C known.@@tootallslim4085

There was an incredible scandals in france like this, nobody goes to jail

@RT-qd8yl

9 ай бұрын

If it's a company, nobody ever goes to jail unless it has to do with the government not getting "their" money.

It's so heartbreaking to see how negligent the medical and scientific community can be. I do have the reverse of this, Factor V Leiden, or thrombophilia. I couldn't imagine some promising me a cure and then getting something much, much worse.

When I was hospitalized at 15 there was a kid that had aids from this exact situation. I was there 3 months and one Saturday my doctor gave me a pass to stay away for 1 night. When I came back on Sunday his stuff was gone. His xmas tree, tv, Nintendo and the bed was stripped. We asked about him and they told us he passed away. All the doctors knew it would happen so my doctor didn't want me to be there. That Friday night beforehand I thought he was getting better because when they told us it was bedtime the nurses took him for a walk for the first time since I got there. I started praying for him and thanking God that he would get better. My mother and I cried so much that Sunday. I never knew his name he was just 17. I still think about him I am 47 now.

I was hoping you'd cover this as a female with Von Willebrand's disease though I don't think I've ever needed a blood transfusion after surgery as I'm usually given clotting agent DDAVP if there's a bleeding risk such as dental surgery etc.

I worked in a high volume plasma donation facility. Having to handle everything and sample it was terrifying considering I handled potentially more than four HIV positive units, some of which had broken seals. I'm lucky I was in charge of my own fate, and after four vials of blood were tested, I'm free from everything. Very lucky considering the amount of human plasma showers I received from when the phlebs didn't do their job fully in the perfect way that passed visual inspection 😅

@FenianAn1mal

9 ай бұрын

I use to donate plasma quite alot and Im surprised they even bother to test it considering how sketchy the places Ive gone to were.

@The_Bean

9 ай бұрын

@@FenianAn1mal It might seem sketchy on the front end. Tbh, most phlebs have a highschool diploma and that's it. Most positions don't really require any higher ED degree, or much training. The training is comprehensive and specific though, and you're fired after few "deviations" (which are posted with the name and type of infraction at your station each week). Each sample has three types taken, NAT, VMT and the backup. Two are sent off for different types of testing, one is saved as the name suggests. We don't actually know if any units are safe until the results are back, so everything is handled like it's contaminated. And unfortunately, sometimes it is - and sometimes we can only tell you what you have when you return.

@The_Bean

9 ай бұрын

@@FenianAn1mal Basically, they want chemistry, biochemistry, bio and other technical degrees in the lab preferentially, so I got the position while studying for biochemistry. I felt like the lab wasn't a great place to work because it was repetitive and boring, and we had to be our own warehouse crew, but it definitely all got tested. If we didn't have the tests from a unit it got trashed. They all have barcodes and we get the results per box - each unit is tracked and scanned into a uniquely labeled box in the freezers and is shipped when all units test negative for everything. TLDR: Training is crap and the frontend is sketchy, but most clinics actually take testing very seriously

Things like this are why I don’t blindly trust any company or government.

I never got to meet my father in law. He was buried one month before I met my husband. His father was a hemophiliac. The tainted blood products needed to keep him alive gave him HIV and Hepatitis A B and C. The trifecta of diseases. It was a cruel way to die.

There's also a Von Willebrand disease, where you're not missing the factor VIII completely like a hemophiliac, but it is severely decreased. These patients were also affected by infected factor products.

@NFowerli

9 ай бұрын

Von Willebrand Disease does not mean you are completely missing factor VIII. You are missing bon Willebrand factor which is protein involved in platelets clumping. Factor VIII is part of the clotting cascade. There kind of related but they are very different.

@FLUFFYCAT_PNW

9 ай бұрын

​@@NFowerlicorrect. We have von willebrand kids at our camp and they're chill, but you're correct, that they have a platelet issue and not a clotting factor issue.

This reminds me a bit of the time a guy died and the hospital assumed it was drug related and shipped his organs off to be used as transplants without testing them. A buch of the recipients were hospitalized with his exact same symptoms. These symptoms included terrible headaches, altered personalities, and an inability to drink water to such a degree that they seemed afraid of it. If that last bit didnt give it away, it was rabies. The guy died of rabies and his infecred organs were transplanted to others, transmitting the disease to them, which is 100% fatal once it shows symptoms.

@Ava-cq1zi

8 ай бұрын

Well that’s a horrifying story

There was a version of this in Canada as well in the between the 1950s and 1980s. Some prisons in Canada where taking blood from prisoners without permission and without proper screening and giving it to blood banks under the assumption all the proper prescreening and post screening had been done. So many people became infected by various illnesses.

Being married to a guy who is sometimes literally crossing days off the calendar eagerly waiting for the next window of opportunity to donate blood, your aside about it not being a pleasant experience made me re-realise I live in a bubble. 😅 A great video as always!

@melasn9836

9 ай бұрын

I don't think your husband is alone in finding blood donating rewarding - I look forward to it & get super bummed when I'm deferred for low iron. It's nice to feel useful in a way.

@patpierce4854

9 ай бұрын

I am right there on the station next to your husband, when it comes to donating blood. My dad was a doctor, mom a nurse, and they were regular donors. I started donating in high school, through college, grad school, teaching, and still in retirement - just shy of 12 lifetime gallons. I’m a B- with no CMV infection; my blood is critical for preemies, newborns, AIDS and burn patients, and those with compromised immune systems. Over my years of donations, I’ve noticed the Red Cross collects more and more extra tubes of blood for more testing. I donate because I CAN - and because of all the times the Red Cross app lets me know my most recent donation went to one of the regional children’s hospitals. My husband is on the deferral list, thanks to spending too much time in England during the “mad cow disease” period. And my son has donated, but didn’t find it pleasant. But the folks at the closest Red Cross donation center know me by name, and I know them by name, too! And I know each time I donate, my blood is tested thoroughly so it’s safe for whoever needs it.

I remember mentioning this on suggestions for future subjects, I'm glad you landed on the subject anyways, because it's a story that needs to be KNOWN by more people than there are now. Keep up the amazing work brother!

I researched this last year after hearing a podcast about the scandal published by The Times. I wondered if you’d cover it, and I’m glad you have. The suffering of the poor people affected, especially in the early days of AIDS is horrific. However, what makes it more sickening is the delay in action once the government were aware.

In my country, we have a temple/hospital that's a place for AIDS people to stay. Some of them abandoned by their own family, some are homeless and some are very high risk of suicide. When I was in high school, we went there and learned that many of them contracted HIV from medical procedure like blood transfusion or organ transplant than drug and unprotected sex.

As a factor 8 hemophiliac, in my mid 30s, I remember going to Hemo Camp as a kid, and every year we'd have one campfire night where we sang sad songs and all the counselors (also hemophiliacs) and our doctors would cry and just kinda feel it. We all knew, even as kids, that they had lived through the worst and that we kids were all so lucky to have been born when we were, after they started testing the blood supply, but it wasn't until I was a little older that I really came to understand what trauma was, and how awful it must have been to be a hematologist in that time, watching all your patients die from medicine you gave them. In the community, pretty much anyone older than me is either living with HIV or very very lucky and usually dealing with survivor's guilt, and even my generation carries around this feeling of having very nearly caught a bullet. Just a year earlier and it all would've been different. I wish my medicine wasn't $400k/yr, but I'm very grateful that they figured out how to make it synthetically and that this is not anything that the hemophiliacs born today will have to ever worry about.

Thank you John; this deserves to be kept in mind.

Reminds me of the contaminated blood scandal we had in France. People in charge knew those blood pockets were infected with HIV but still pushed to use them. That led to a trial yeeeeeaaaaars later, when everyone was dead

between this and thalidomide babies and so many other cases of neglect and greed It's amazing we still allow pharmaceutical companies to be so deeply involved in modern day lobbying and political funding.

@pfadiva

9 ай бұрын

Not amazing. It's MONEY.

@crf80fdarkdays

9 ай бұрын

Learn how to use "and" correctly please, that hurt my brain.

You got a gift to cut to the meat of the story and yet the short story you published feels as complete as an hours long documentary.

I knew someone who got Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion when they were a baby in the early 80's

When I was a young child one of my friends died due to contracting the virus from a transfusion. I'll never forget her, I am glad it is a different time now. She was robbed of her life.

You should make up some TV weather report style screens to put up when you describe your corner of london... nothing fancy... just a simple graphic on your style of the sun or rain or whatever, snd the min/max temps for the day you're editing.

My aunt got hepatitis from a blood transfusion during a brain surgery when she was 12. Unfortunately it was in a military hospital so good luck suing

Waitwaitwait, you're telling me a subsidiary of Bayer was pure evil? Well I never!

I like your videos! Keep up the good work! I'm gonna say this again like your other videos. Please do the Chase Maryland Train Collision which is a precautionary tale about doing weed while operating heavy machinery.

I'm so glad you've put this together! I am a severe hemophiliac who is dependent on factor concentrates, but luckily the year I was born the FDA did something right and approved the first "recombinant" (synthetic) Factor IX product for the general public, and I have been on products like that since I was born. However, because it does take time to get these sorts of genetic tests back to confirm someone has hemophilia (and to identify the specific kind), brand new born babies suspected of a bleeding disorder are often given "cryoprecipitate" to deal with uncontrollable bleeding from circumcision wounds, cord cutting, etc. The reason a video like this is important right now is because there's no protections in place to make sure something like this doesn't happen again. As I mentioned, babies having bleeding episodes get cryoprecipitate. This is what results when human plasma is dropped to very low temperatures, and then can be sort of scooped out of solution to then be given as medicine. If that human plasma gets contaminated, then you have a repeat of this disaster. Not to mention that in places like the united states, individuals, families, and doctors have to make a cost benefit analysis when it comes to choosing a Factor Product (what we hemophiliacs take as medicine), and because of reasons that boil down to capitalism most people end up choosing whatever the cheapest option is (because that's what insurance will pay for). Even the cheapest options are multiple tens of thousands of dollars per year (if not per month). As someone in the UK, you have a rather unique perspective on an issue like this. I will posit this to you: there is a new product on the market, a gene therapy treatment called Hemgenix. Would it cost more or less (over the course of an individual patient's life) for the NHS to give all diagnosed hemophilia B patients this drug, or to keep them on a less expensive option (and in this case, less expensive generally means less efficacious)? The answer should be easy to see: if a more expensive drug can keep patients out of hospital stays (which are always the most expensive aspect of healthcare), then over the course of the patient's life, the reduced total amount of hospitalizations is SO significantly cheaper that it kind of boggles the mind how anyone making decisions couldn't see that. if anyone's read all this, thank you. thank you a million times, PD, for taking the time out of your life to make such an important vid.

I had a friend who died from this hemophiliac treatment. He was so gifted.

Plainly never disappoints! Thanks for the endless entertainment and research behind it

I was a preemie and received blood transfusions at the same time and hospital as Ryan White. I grew up having my blood checked regularly until a certain age, around the time I went to school I think. I didn’t know why I had to see the nurses all of the time. I remember my mom was always nervous (needles do make her nervous) but I also remember crying at my last appointment because I was going to miss the nurses I’d seen all of the time growing up. My mom told me why I was always getting checked up once I was an adult. My mom just told me up until then that it was because I was a preemie and they wanted to make sure I was healthy. It was really because they wanted to be sure I hadn’t contracted HIV/AIDS.

Everyone who was a kid at the time (yes I'm internet old) will remember the Ryan White story and how much publicity that got and the general awareness of the disease that one kids tragic story brought to the fore.

John, an excellent episode of a largely unknown health disaster, thank you Plainly Difficult!!!🙏😢🏥

Dude the extra production is kicking ass, love that intro, watching the rest now!

Your videos are one of the things I have really come to look forward to on Saturdays. I remember this scare, really interesting to hear the full story. Thanks for all the hard work!

I have hemophilia B (factor IX deficiency) and I highly recommend the documentary Bad Blood to fully understand how awful this situation really was and how the response from the US/US based drug companies was uniquely terrible compaired to the rest of the world. I feel very lucky that I grew up in an era where I never needed factor from donor blood and instead had Benefix and later Idelvion.

Thank you John, very much appreciate your content.

I found this vid more fascinating than I thought I would, thanks for the interesting information.

Seems like you stepped up your editing game and I really like the CRT tv intro. Good shit I'm pretty sure like with tainted HIV DRUGS Western companies still had access to Africa and South American markets for their poison.

Isaac Asimov, the legendary writer was killed by a bad bloodtransfusion that gave him AIDS. RIP

You know, I have come to enjoy the ending weather report as well! These videos are so entertaining.

I love the music you pick for your videos. Plus, your original music is awesome.

"monantarly depleted individuals" properly the most PC thing I've heard.

Great documentary! I'm a norwegian survivor from this. I got Hepatitis C in the late 70s. Had to go on the front page of Verdens Gang, the biggest newspaper in Norway, i got bullied for AIDS. I didnt have AIDS, but who cared. I was a hemophiliac with Hepatitis C. I love that the british hemophiliasociety is stiring tings up a bit.❤😂

living for every episode of scandal you cover it so well and its so interesting!!

@PlainlyDifficult

9 ай бұрын

Thank you

Thank you for covering topics like this that I’ve never heard about.

It's bad enough have a chronic illness (I suffer with crohns) but for your treatment to have such a high initial risk of giving you AIDs, especially after they knew about it, is terrible.

You are one of the best youtubers. Always with the donation site to consider supporting the affected communities. Thankyou.

@PlainlyDifficult

9 ай бұрын

Thank you too!

I really do enjoy hearing about other people talking about Hemophilia other than myself, my family, or my doctors. And I REALLY enjoy hearing other people learning about the HIV epidemic and how it affected other people than just queer folks in the 80s, 90s, and so on. I do appreciate the video :) When my brother and I were little, we had learned about this thoroughly through our doctors, and now medicine for Hemophiliacs has seriously improved! My brother started his life expecting to live 30-40 years, and now his lifespan has been extended immensely! I have it mild compared to him, but it’s wonderful that treatments have gotten much better, even if it started with a less than ideal problem. It was because of the scandal that blood now gets tested thoroughly, and treatments have improved :)

Plasma pays cash, blood pays in cookies

Nothing like good old greed and bigotry to make a bad situation worse. Thanks for covering this

Congrats on the subscriber gain mate! Can't wait till you hit that 1 mil!

I love this recent format, no cutting out stuttering and misread. It feel more natural and get me to focus more on listening, like an actual live presentation. And thanks to this video, I never knew about this before, even though we have pre-screening of blood-donor, they also do lab test and better processing, all because the scandal like this in the past.

Isaac Asimov was contracted HIV through contaminated blood transfusion. He must've been in extreme shame, fear and agony when he died. Doctors advised him not to go public with this, as to "keep him from the shame and stigma", but more likely because they knew it was on them. They made him even more at unease for their own comfort.

@RADIUMGLASS

8 ай бұрын

A Soviet spy living in the US did an interview for 60 minutes on CBS and he said the way he got out of being in the KGB was saying that he had AIDS and they declared him dead. He said AIDS was one of three things the Soviets feared.