History of Tainted Blood: HIV and HCV in the Bleeding Disorders Community
When AIDS appeared in the early 1980s and soon became an epidemic, the entire Canadian blood supply system was affected. Over the next years, HIV had a huge impact on the hemophilia and blood-transfused communities.
With the advent of HIV testing in 1985, it was recognized that a very high percentage of those with severe hemophilia and hundreds of others receiving blood or blood products had been infected.
More than 1,100 transfused Canadians were infected by HIV, of whom 700 had hemophilia and other bleeding disorders, and 400 were transfusion recipients for other reasons (trauma, surgery, childbirth, cancer…). Between 700 and 800 of these people have passed away.
A much larger number of people – up to 20,000 – were infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) through blood and blood products before testing was introduced in 1990.
The number of people who have died from hepatitis C related liver disease caused by tainted blood is not known but could be in the thousands, and continues to rise.
The tainted blood tragedy is one of the worst public health disasters that Canada has ever faced.
Between October 1993 and November 1997, when the Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada was published, the Krever Commission brought this tainted blood tragedy into the public eye.
HIV: Know your rights
Know Your Rights 1: Disclosure at work
Know Your Rights 2: Accommodation in the workplace
Know Your Rights 3: Remedies for discrimination and privacy violations in the workplace
Know Your Rights 4: Disclosure and post-secondary education
Know Your Rights 5: Disclosure as a patient
Know Your Rights 6: Privacy and health records
Know Your Rights 7: Disclosure in school and daycare
Know Your Rights 8: Disclosure, privacy and parenting
Know Your Rights, Use Your Laws
This handbook was written by a team of legal experts and reviewed by community activists working for improving the human rights situation of people with HIV and key populations most at risk of HIV. It is intended for people with HIV, people who are at higher risk of HIV, as well as their partners and family members.
Additional legal resources for people with HIV can be found at HALCO, HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario. HALCO is a charitable not-for-profit community-based legal clinic that provides free legal services for people living with HIV/AIDS in Ontario, Canada.
