[Judith Anne]

It's not doubtful to me. I believe he did get it from a transfusion. The first tests that the Red Cross did on all donated blood began in May of 1985, IIRC, and even then they weren't considered totally reliable (still aren't). In addition, if you have transfused platelets, you can be getting blood components from up to 20,000 people. A lot of hemophiliacs died from HIV, in case you don't remember or weren't around then.

And I don't like the comment you made about the source of his disease.

[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.

[tortoise]

The first tests that the Red Cross did on all donated blood began in May of 1985, IIRC, and even then they weren't considered totally reliable (still aren't).

Indeed. The first blood screening technology to test directly for HIV and other viruses (previously, blood screening used human antibody tests which are not entirely reliable) was approved by the FDA last month. This will greatly increase the safety of the blood supply by detecting viruses in blood before there is even an immune response (the technology sniffs out viral RNA/DNA that is integral to the virus itself).

[andysandmikesmom]

You are so correct, about when HIV testing began, and about how, when one receives various blood products, they may come from multiple donors....my son had APL leukemia, which because of its vicious nature, usually makes the person sick with it have to have so many transfusions...my son received transfusions from May 1984, through August 1985, and I do know that for most of that time, blood was not tested at all for HIV...it was only towards the end of my sons disease in 1985, did routine testing of blood for HIV become routine...

My son died in August 1985 because of complications of his leukemia...but he could have just as easily have died from HIV, through transfusions because of the lack of testing...

To me, its really quite pathetic that there are those who would prefer to believe that Asimov contracted Aids as a result of his behavior, rather than the most logical conclusion, which would be that he got the HIV from a blood transfusion, exactly as he thought...