Man Gets $570,000 in Tainted Blood Case
A man who developed AIDS after a transfusion was awarded $570,000 in the first successful lawsuit of its kind against the organization that establishes blood-screening standards for the nation’s blood banks.
A Bergen County Superior Court jury ordered the American Assn. of Blood Banks on Thursday to pay William Snyder $405,000 in compensatory damages and an estimated $165,000 in interest. Snyder, 67, said he contracted the human immunodeficiency virus from a blood transfusion following heart surgery in 1984.
Snyder’s lawyer, George Baxter, had argued that while a test for the AIDS virus was not available until 1985, the association knew as early as 1983 that a “surrogate test” for a type of hepatitis would have detected blood donors carrying a still-unidentified virus that turned out to be HIV.
The association recommended against using the test in January, 1983, Baxter said.
Association attorney Edwin R. Matthews said the Bethesda, Md.-based group plans to appeal the decision.
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