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Goldfinger declined to comment for this story.
Only in 1987, as part of the federally funded study, did Cedars-Sinai contact most of the families of children who had received possibly tainted transfusions and urge them to be tested. Some parents — including Kasper — said they were encouraged not to share the diagnosis with anyone else.
"In the context of the events back then, I think we tried to do the best that we could," said Thomas M. Priselac, Cedars-Sinai current chief executive and president, who has held various posts at the hospital since 1979.
In hindsight, nearly everyone involved in the crisis nationally moved too slowly, according to a 1995 report by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. As a result, the institute concluded, "Perhaps no other public health crisis has given rise to more lasting anger and concern than the contamination of the nation's blood supply with HIV."
If nearly everyone involved was implicated, no one in particular was held responsible. When patients or their families sued hospitals and others, they often found it impossible to prove negligence. Cedars-Sinai said it never lost a case in court but settled at least two.
Hemophiliacs who had been infected through a blood-clotting product were far more successful in winning court awards and settlements from manufacturers. They also effectively lobbied Congress, obtaining up to $100,000 each in compensation.
Transfusion recipients received nothing from the federal government.
Over the years, children like Ghaffari have been relegated to the annals of AIDS history, a distant memory even to AIDS activists.
But Bruce Kasper hasn't forgotten them. Ghaffari learned that the first time they spoke. Kasper had every detail on file.
The two settled into a pattern, talking every day. The younger man paced his small apartment, sharing his questions and fears, as the older one, in raspy tones, revisited the events of a generation before.
KASPER STILL CALLS IT THE DAY "my world collapsed."
On Feb. 11, 1987, he was at his office in downtown Los Angeles when a Cedars-Sinai physician telephoned and said Kasper's kindergartner might have been infected with the AIDS virus.
Born seven weeks premature in September 1980, Anique had been treated for jaundice at Cedars-Sinai. She received several blood transfusions in her first week of life. One of them, barely enough to fill three tablespoons, was contaminated with HIV.
With the call, "everything just fell into place," said Kasper, now 66. Her childhood illnesses had seemed to last longer than normal; doctors never could pinpoint a cause. A test months later confirmed that she had HIV.
Within a few years, Anique was wasting away. Photos from that period show a blond girl with skeletal features and a taut smile. She developed a racking cough, asthma and difficulty speaking.
"You're standing there watching your child slip from you, and there's nothing you can do," Kasper said.
He asked Cedars-Sinai to pay for her treatment at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, correspondence shows, but the hospital refused.
If she needed AIDS-related care, Cedars-Sinai President Sheldon S. King wrote her father in March 1990, she could get it free — at Cedars-Sinai — after her insurance picked up its portion. That, he wrote in a later letter, "more than adequately satisfies any moral or ethical responsibility we might have."
The letters are part of Kasper's voluminous files — the evidence he has carefully gathered. So is Anique's own plea to Cedars-Sinai, dated Jan. 5, 1992.
"Dear hospital," the three-page handwritten letter began.
Only in 1987, as part of the federally funded study, did Cedars-Sinai contact most of the families of children who had received possibly tainted transfusions and urge them to be tested. Some parents — including Kasper — said they were encouraged not to share the diagnosis with anyone else.
"In the context of the events back then, I think we tried to do the best that we could," said Thomas M. Priselac, Cedars-Sinai current chief executive and president, who has held various posts at the hospital since 1979.
In hindsight, nearly everyone involved in the crisis nationally moved too slowly, according to a 1995 report by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. As a result, the institute concluded, "Perhaps no other public health crisis has given rise to more lasting anger and concern than the contamination of the nation's blood supply with HIV."
If nearly everyone involved was implicated, no one in particular was held responsible. When patients or their families sued hospitals and others, they often found it impossible to prove negligence. Cedars-Sinai said it never lost a case in court but settled at least two.
Hemophiliacs who had been infected through a blood-clotting product were far more successful in winning court awards and settlements from manufacturers. They also effectively lobbied Congress, obtaining up to $100,000 each in compensation.
Transfusion recipients received nothing from the federal government.
Over the years, children like Ghaffari have been relegated to the annals of AIDS history, a distant memory even to AIDS activists.
But Bruce Kasper hasn't forgotten them. Ghaffari learned that the first time they spoke. Kasper had every detail on file.
The two settled into a pattern, talking every day. The younger man paced his small apartment, sharing his questions and fears, as the older one, in raspy tones, revisited the events of a generation before.
KASPER STILL CALLS IT THE DAY "my world collapsed."
On Feb. 11, 1987, he was at his office in downtown Los Angeles when a Cedars-Sinai physician telephoned and said Kasper's kindergartner might have been infected with the AIDS virus.
Born seven weeks premature in September 1980, Anique had been treated for jaundice at Cedars-Sinai. She received several blood transfusions in her first week of life. One of them, barely enough to fill three tablespoons, was contaminated with HIV.
With the call, "everything just fell into place," said Kasper, now 66. Her childhood illnesses had seemed to last longer than normal; doctors never could pinpoint a cause. A test months later confirmed that she had HIV.
Within a few years, Anique was wasting away. Photos from that period show a blond girl with skeletal features and a taut smile. She developed a racking cough, asthma and difficulty speaking.
"You're standing there watching your child slip from you, and there's nothing you can do," Kasper said.
He asked Cedars-Sinai to pay for her treatment at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, correspondence shows, but the hospital refused.
If she needed AIDS-related care, Cedars-Sinai President Sheldon S. King wrote her father in March 1990, she could get it free — at Cedars-Sinai — after her insurance picked up its portion. That, he wrote in a later letter, "more than adequately satisfies any moral or ethical responsibility we might have."
The letters are part of Kasper's voluminous files — the evidence he has carefully gathered. So is Anique's own plea to Cedars-Sinai, dated Jan. 5, 1992.
"Dear hospital," the three-page handwritten letter began.
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