Center for Social Innovation

In December 1984, 53-year-old Kenneth Pittman underwent coronary bypass surgery in Toronto. During the operation, he received an infusion of cryoprecipitate, a fluffy white protein that helps clot blood. Pittman survived his heart disease and the surgery, but not the infusion: In March 1990, he learned that he had contracted HIV from the cryoprecipitate. He died a few days later. His wife, Rochelle Pittman, did not learn about the diagnosis until three weeks after her husband’s funeral. By June 1995, she too had succumbed to HIV infection, recounts André Picard in The Gift of Death, a chronicle of Canada’s tainted blood scandal.

Starting in the 1970s, HIV and hepatitis C found their way into Canada’s blood supply. By 1990, more than 1,200 Canadians had contracted HIV from blood and blood products. Three-quarters of these people have since died. ... Read more