Red Cross sued over blood safety > Failure to test for AIDS cited

A class-action lawsuit was filed Monday contending that the American Red Cross’ failure to adopt blood-screening tests in the early 1980s had resulted in “at least 230” transfusion recipients being infected with AIDS from contaminated blood.

The law firm of Ashcraft & Gerel filed the suit against the American National Red Cross in Superior Court of the District of Columbia on behalf of Roland Ray, a grocer who allegedly received contaminated blood from Red Cross in August 1984 after being shot during a holdup.

The suit requests that the court declare as a class all those persons who contracted AIDS from “improperly screened blood” supplied by Red Cross’ Washington regional blood center between June 1984 and March 1985 and who later developed AIDS.

Brian Ruberry, a Red Cross spokesman, said Monday it was the organization’s “standing operating procedure not to comment on pending litigation.” He confirmed that Red Cross officials had been served with a copy of the suit.

The lawsuit comes in the wake of a Food and Drug Administration report last week that detailed deficiencies in the operation of American Red Cross’ national headquarters in Washington. Among other points, the inspection report said that Red Cross failed to report to the FDA 230 cases in which individuals may have been infected with AIDS from contaminated blood — in violation of Red Cross’ own reporting procedures.

“The 230 figure is being used because that’s the number in the FDA report,” said Michael H. Feldman, one of three attorneys who filed the lawsuit. “Either the FDA or Red Cross, or both, have said that all of those cases were prior to March 1985. So we believe there are at least 230 cases that are potential members of the class.”

The suit contends that, during a nine-month period between 1984 and 1985, Red Cross officials chose not to use several tests that were available to screen out blood that had “a high likelihood of transmitting AIDS.”

Such tests were known as “surrogate tests” because they did not specifically identify the AIDS virus but instead identified medical conditions — for example, a history of hepatitis — that were associated with individuals at high risk for AIDS.

Red Cross officials have said in the past that surrogate tests were costly and would have resulted in the loss of healthy donors, along with the risky ones.

A congressional subcommittee was told last week that the blood-banking industry resisted industry resisted efforts to impose blood-screening tests for AIDS in the early 1980s, resulting in thousands of people becoming infected with the AIDS virus through blood transfusions.

“Our blood banks failed us, the blood industry failed us, the Centers for Disease Control failed us, and the Food and Drug Administration failed us,” said Dr. Marcus Conant, a professor at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco.

He was among six witnesses testifying on the opening day of congressional hearings on the safety of the nation’s blood supply. The session, the first of what is expected to be several hearings, was held before the subcommittee on oversight and investigations of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

But it was the testimony of Mary T. Carden, the Food and Drug Administration’s top blood-bank inspector, that galvanized the standing-room-only hearing in the House Rayburn Office Building. Carden testified that an unprecedented inspection she conducted of Red Cross national headquarters in Washington May 25 found hundreds of deficiencies.

Carden testified that Red Cross officials showed little interest when she presented them with evidence of hundreds of safety problems in their blood program.

“I would characterize the general, overall tone of the inspection” of the Red Cross’s national headquarters “as being nonchalant,” Carden said.

Red Cross officials were not invited to testify at Friday’s hearing. But in a telephone interview last night, a Red Cross spokesman disputed Carden’s characterization.

“We certainly don’t agree with that assessment,” said the Red Cross’s Brian Ruberry. “We were quite taken aback.”

In another development, Ruberry on Friday night confirmed that the director of the Red Cross blood program, Dr. Lewellys F. Barker, was leaving that position. “We have not announced it publicly due to the amazing coincidence with the recent news reports,” Ruberry said. “Actually, it’s a retirement.”

As chief medical officer for Red Cross, Barker is responsible for the organization’s federal license from the FDA to collect and distribute blood.