Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The San Francisco Examiner - Wednesday, April 16, 1997
Lisa M. Krieger of the Examiner Staff
And until it gets resolved, no one gets paid.
As part of the settlement, drug companies who sold HIV-tainted blood products agreed to pay hemophiliacs infected with HIV $620 million - $100,000 each for the 6,200 plaintiffs.
Then Medicaid jumped into the act, saying it deserves some money, too, because it has been paying the huge medical costs of uninsured hemophiliacs.
Although Medicaid hasn't pressed for immediate payment, it has refused to waive a potential claim to the cash, asserting that because it has supported sick people for more than 15 years, it may have a legal right to reimbursement. The government has taken a similar position in suits against tobacco companies over the costs of lung cancer treatment, said Justice Department officials, who are representing Medicaid.
The four drug companies - Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Baxter International Inc., Alpha Therapeutic Inc. and a unit of Bayer AG - are offering an additional $5 million to $10 million to settle the government's possible claims, but no agreement has been reached.
Hemophiliacs are furious.
"This is no windfall. This is money that people can use to pay for future medical care, send their kids to college, or leave behind to support their wife or partner - because they're too sick to work," said Dana Francis of the Oakland-based Hemophilia Council of California.
"It is reparation for the decision by the federal government in the early 1980s" to permit sale of tainted blood products, he said. "They had information (about potential risk of HIV in blood) and didn't act on it quickly enough. This could have been prevented."
Hemophiliacs say that, despite early evidence, the federal Food and Drug Administration failed to require screening for the virus and that few blood companies did so voluntarily.
"So here we are with medical issues that we shouldn't have had to deal with," Francis said.
U.S. District Judge John Grady, who oversaw the settlement, has ordered the parties to work faster and arrive at some sort of agreement. The drug companies have until May 1 to work out the terms of payment to HIV-infected hemophiliacs who never qualified for government assistance, and to sort out the terms for everyone else by Dec. 31.
Medicaid officials in all 50 states may also need to arrive at a similar agreement, because the program is partly state-funded.
The imbroglio is about more than just money, adds Francis of the Hemophiliac Council.
"People just want somebody to be accountable," he said. "They want somebody - either the drug companies or the federal government - to say: "Yes, we made a mistake.""
Other hemophilia news
*Some people infected with HIV have opted out of the class settlement and instead are pursuing separate suits against the drug companies. A favorable verdict in an Indianapolis court earlier this year has renewed hope that individuals may get compensation for their infection.
*Every Wednesday in San Francisco's Financial District, hemophiliacs with HIV distribute about 500 leaflets in front of the law offices of O'Connor, Cohn, Dillon and Barr to protest the firm's legal defense of drug companies that produced HIV-tainted blood products.
Later, the sick men and women go to the East Bay to leaflet employees of Bayer, which has a lab in Berkeley.
They say they want employees of the law firm and drug company - many of whom are young and do not know the history of the dispute - to understand their grievances.
*The newly proposed Ricky Ray bill (H.R.1023 and S389) , introduced by Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., and Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, would establish a trust fund to compensate individuals with hemophilia who were infected with HIV. The bill was first introduced last Congress, but was never brought up for a vote. The current version has garnered bipartisan support of more than 180 members of congress.
The legislation, named after a Florida teenager who had hemophilia and died from AIDS, would provide economic and non-economic aid. It would also allow those with HIV and hemophilia to access government-sponsored medical care without having to use up their families' financial resources.
Progress in the lab
Two teams of scientists reported in the journal Science that they were able to block HIV from infiltrating and infecting certain blood cells.
One team, in effect, locked the virus out of certain blood cells in a test tube. The other team has been conducting a small, novel experiment that entails taking white blood cells, modifying them to resist HIV, and then infusing them into a patient. Researchers said they hope the approach will hold promise of reconstituting impaired immune systems with HIV-resistant cells.
Both research projects, although still in early stages, represent a bridge from last year's groundbreaking discoveries about a group of proteins called chemokines. One project is led by scientists at Glaxo Wellcome Research and Development in Geneva; the other is led by the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute in Washington, D.C.
The toll
Mark Patino, 33, an actor, director and costumer who was a fixture in East Bay theaters such as Masquers of Point Richmond ... John C. Kuehn, 49, former computer whiz of Shaklee Corp. in San Francisco, who spoke French and loved traveling, kayaking, and horseback riding ... Mike Valent, who had many friends in San Francisco and died in a medical unit at Utah State Prison after what the family said was an unsuccessful attempt to convince the prison to provide anti-viral medication.
Date
reported / Cases / Deaths
S.F. 4/1 23,974 16,692
Calif. 4/1 99,908 64,137
U.S. 4/1 548,102 343,000
WHO(rprtd) 4/1 8,400,000 6,400,000
Figures are cumulative since June 1981. Government officials now compile and release statistics quarterly, not monthly.
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