[The Great Satan]

Asimov's final illness is detailed by the author himself, and by his wife, in his memoir, I. Asimov. He had his first heart attack in his fifties, so he was actually pretty lucky to survive into his seventies. Even if it turns out that he was HIV positive from a transfusion, the symptoms described have nothing to do with AIDS, unless we are now supposed to believe that AIDS causes kidney disease and heart murmur.

[Judith Anne]

Yes, thanks. My father, now deceased, had surgery and several transfusions due to bleeding ulcers in the early 80's. That was when the very first articles about HIV infection were appearing. IIRC, the first articles Newsweek and Time had about HIV were around 1983. Until then, it wasn't in the news much.