Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - Wednesday October 21, 1998
Katherine Rizzo, Associated Press Writer
The bill, passed by the Senate on a voice vote, authorizes payments of $100,000 apiece for hemophiliacs who might not have gotten the virus that causes AIDS if the government had been more aggressive about screening tainted blood and blood products.
The measure headed for President Clinton's desk does not put the checks in the mail, though, because no money was appropriated for the payments. However, with the authorization in hand, the bill's backers now can lobby Congress to appropriate the estimated $750 million it would cost to compensate all affected hemophiliacs or their survivors.
The bill, named after Ricky Ray, a 15-year-old hemophiliac from Florida who died from AIDS in 1992, became controversial late in the legislative process, when people who contracted the disease from tainted blood transfusions argued that they deserved to be included, too.
Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., took up the cause of the tainted transfusion victims, and at one point blocked consideration of the Ricky Ray bill in an effort to force action on a more encompassing authorization.
Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said he spent the weekend on the phone pressing Senate leaders to move the bill to the floor and dealing with the last-minute objections of other senators.
Spokesman Joe Karpinski said Jeffords never planned to hold up the legislation altogether, and dropped his objections to the House bill after it became clear that he could not develop a consensus to include the transfusion victims, potentially doubling the cost.
"We've worked at this for five years," said Val Bias of the National Hemophilia Foundation. "If we had never gotten to the floor with 62 co-sponsors in the Senate it would have been a real tragedy."
The group whose late lobbying inspired Jeffords' delaying tactics said it, too, ended up pressing lawmakers to approve the hemophilia payments.
"We didn't want to be part of the bill if it meant our friends with hemophilia lose their bill," Steve Grissom, president of the National Association for Victims of Transfusion Acquired AIDS Inc. said from his Cary, N.C., home. "Our worst nightmare was that no bill would pass."
Grissom said people such as himself, a leukemia sufferer who contracted HIV through transfusions of tainted blood, "now know there are key members of Congress that are well aware that more than people with hemophilia were affected."
Hemophiliacs and transfusion recipients were infected in the early years of the AIDS crisis with blood donated by people who carried the virus. The Institute of Medicine, a scientific organization that advises the government, later concluded that government caution, fear of criticism and inadequate leadership delayed effective screening of donors and proper blood testing.
Hemophiliacs have already won $100,000 each from the blood industry through the settlement of a class action lawsuit. Transfusion court victories have been more sporadic.
Karpinski said Jeffords will try again next year to add transfusion victims to the legislation, which Clinton is expected to sign.
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