He had hemophilia and was receiving factor 8, the clotting agent, which the Red Cross supplied. Factor 8, being extracted from many units of donated blood, had a much greater chance of being contaminated with the HIV virus, and of course hemophiliacs were getting it regularly, increasing their exposure.
As I understand it they were getting factor 8 from a US company that was getting the blood from donors in prisons, among other places, and prisons of course were hotbeds of HIV infection with all the IV drug users in them. This error was magnified when the Red Cross did not immediately discard supplies of factor 8 when they became aware it might be contaminated with HIV.
Some, maybe many, of those who got HIV or Hep C through whole blood transfusions got it before there were effective screening procedures for HIV and Hep in donated blood. The Red Cross was slow, however, in adopting the screening procedures when they did become available.
As I understand it, there was an extremely high mortality rate among hemophiliacs during a certain time period in the 1980's before blood was routinely screened for HIV.
How stupid can you get??? Taking blood from a population highly likely to practice the types of behavior of all of the exclusionary questions the Red Cross has on their Q&A sheets! We all know how truthful they would be, too!
Re: Factor 8 explanation.
Thank you both. That makes much more sense. I stand corrected.