This tragic story is a microcosm of Canada's blood scandal. For over a decade, bureaucratic dithering, profits-over-protection responses, a paternalistic medical establishment and uninformed victims combined to create the worst health-care disaster in Canadian history. More than 1,200 people have contracted AIDS from tainted blood -- and the dying continues.
Andr, Picard has produced the definitive analysis of this complex tragedy. All of the players are here -- public health officials who refused to take the "homosexual plague" seriously; the Red Cross, which worried about bad publicity and the bottom line; the too-little-too-late government that offered inadequate compensation for victims; and the arrogant medical establishment which sometimes took years to inform HIV patients of their condition; and most of all, the victims, who are paying for this betrayal with their lives.
The Gift of Death is a call for a serious re-evaluation of an outdated blood system to ensure that a similar tragedy never occurs.
