Opinion: Thousands, including my husband, died because of tainted blood. I’m afraid it could happen again

Weeks after I held my husband’s hand as he drew his last breath, my 4-year-old son, Ryan, jumped into my arms and asked, “Why did they give Daddy the bad medicine?” My heart sank. Ryan had overheard me discussing the shocking details of the death of my husband, Dave, a beloved special education teacher, in June 1997. I’d just learned how pharmaceutical companies had sold blood-clotting products approved by the Food and Drug Administration that were tainted with HIV and/or hepatitis viruses to people with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders between the 1970s and early 1990s.

With Ryan’s arms wrapped around my neck, I contemplated my “bad medicine” response. I was still processing the decisions that caused the infections of tens of thousands of people in the U.S. and abroad. The plasma-derived products, once administered, also led to secondary HIV exposure to sexual partners like me, who then risked infecting their unborn children.

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