In 1990, hospital and medical officials conducted a hostile takeover of the J.K. and Susie L. Wadley Research Institute and Blood Bank. That ended nearly 56 years of my father and I serving as the medical directors and CEOs of the principle blood bank in Dallas, Texas.How and why did this occur? In the 1980s, scientists discovered and developed tests to identify AIDS, T-cell leukemia, and hepatitis C virus infections. In March 1985, blood banks began screening donations for blood contaminated with AIDS virus. Many donors testing positive for AIDS had donated blood in previous years. Thus, their donations may have transmitted AIDS to the transfused patients. In November 1985, I proposed looking back in time to contact patients that were possibly infected. Some within the medical community strongly opposed doing so. In 1986, however, the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) implemented AIDS lookback. Federal regulators at the food and drug administration (FDA) mandated the program for all U.S. blood banks and hospitals.Hepatitis C virus (HCV) was another story. The FDA licensed a screening test in May 1990. However, the FDA delayed hepatitis C lookback for nearly a decade due to opposition within the medical community.Why were they opposed? Fear. AIDS lookbacks triggered expensive lawsuits against blood banks, hospitals, and physicians. Hepatitis C lookback procedures needed to contact far more patients going back years further than for AIDS. Litigation could be much more expensive.What should be done? HCV infection was insidious; it could lurk silently for years before resulting in cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer, or death. Patients had every right to know they should be tested for HCV infection. Doctors and hospitals would be betraying their patients if they concealed that information from them. What did they do? HCV lookback opponents did nothing for as long as they could until the problems slowly died out.In the mid-1930s, my father started Texas' first blood bank at Baylor Hospital in Dallas. It may have preceded Chicago's Cook County Hospital Blood Bank which is considered the nation's first. Baylor's blood bank became known as the William Buchanan Blood and Plasma Center. In 1952, the J. K. And Susie L. Wadley Research Institute and Blood Bank became the Buchanan center's successor. Wadley was the principal blood bank in Dallas until it merged with Fort Worth's Carter Blood Center in the early 1990s to become Carter BloodCare.The Wadley's only grandson died of leukemia in 1943 and they founded their research institute and blood bank to fight it. Wadley scientists conducted significant research in the treatment of leukemia and cancer. Several firsts included development of L-asparaginase for leukemia, the first use of the platinum compounds for cancer chemotherapy, and the first interferon production laboratory in the United States. These and other research developments are discussed in the following chapters.This book is a history of medical achievements amid contentious times, including medical politics. It spans from the time before World War II to the transfusion safety challenges of new virus diseases.
This book title, Blood and Betrayal (The Untold History), ISBN: 9781543994360, by Norwood Hill, published by BookBaby (March 14, 2020) is available in paperback. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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