Victor



// An American Tragedy in //// Iowa // // By David Gates // ~since 1986 seven people in one family have died of AIDS, and an eighth person is HIV positive ~these people are victims of America’s “hemophilia holocaust”: the spread of AIDs among hemophiliacs who received contaminated blood products during treatment of their disease ~of the 20,000 surviving hemophiliacs in the US, as many as 50% now carry the AIDs virus ~six of the Goedkens’ seven sons inherited hemophilia (almost exclusively a male disease) -one died at age 11 -the rest of their children suffered from cuts and bruises, profuse bleeding, transfusions, pain in their joints that was so intense they howled in pain ~in the early 1970’s concentrated blood clotting agents promised them a freer life, they could stop a bad bleed by injecting themselves ~between 1980-1990 one of the brothers took 253 infusions of Factor VIII…each of those infusions represented 20,000 different blood donors ~Another son died in March 1987 (Ernie) ~In September Clayton died from AIDS at the age of 4 months old ~the day Clayton died, Carl was put in a psychiatric hospital because he burned down his house in a fit of AIDS-induced dementia ~Carl died in October of 1989 ~Jan was hospitalized in the spring of 1990, Loras (her husband) brought her home and she died in April ~In March 1991 Karen (Dennis’ ex-wife) died ~JJ died on the first of August (his wife’s birthday)