FOUNTAIN VALLEY : AIDS Victim Says Report Bolsters Suit

An attorney for a Santa Ana woman who says she contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center used a federal report Tuesday to criticize screening procedures at a blood bank the woman is suing.

“This report further confirms and supports our belief that (the blood bank) was negligent,” said attorney Bonnie K. Lawley, who represents 49-year-old Catalina Grigley.

Grigley alleges that she was infected with the AIDS virus from a transfusion she received in August, 1989, while undergoing heart surgery. Grigley is suing the hospital, two blood banks and her doctor for damages, claiming negligence and medical malpractice.

During a press conference at Lawley’s Anaheim office, the attorney presented a U.S. Food and Drug Administration report that looked into the testing and screening procedures at the Oklahoma Blood Institute, the clinic where the contaminated blood donation was taken.

“It appears that the system in use at Oklahoma Blood Institute to prevent the distribution of blood products from unsuitable donors has not always been effective,” the FDA’s March, 1990, report concluded.

Gerald Vince, the district director responsible for the FDA’s Oklahoma office, said that the report found “errors” in test procedures that caused the agency “some concern.”

Nonetheless, Vince said the blood bank “has not had any complaints of a significant or serious basis.” He said the FDA has found no reason to close or reprimand the blood bank and that officials there have taken steps to correct the problems.

The blood bank’s attorney, Scott A. Martin, denied that the facility had made any errors. He also said that the infected blood that Grigley received was tested by the blood bank under FDA standards.

The infected blood used in Grigley’s transfusion was supplied by the Oklahoma Blood Institute, which shipped it to the American Blood Institute in Los Angeles, which in turn gave it to the Fountain Valley hospital, officials said.