Sunday, April 29, 2012

VANCOUVER: Ryan White was circumcised then tested for haemophilia

The Ball State Daily News
April 28, 2012

Mother of AIDS martyr Ryan White speaks at Pruis Hall


By Haylee Brannon

Jeanne White-Ginder, mother of Ryan White who died in 1990 from AIDS, spoke Thursday night for an event hosted by Project Posi(+)ive Empowerment, an immersive learning class at Ball State.

...

“I’m just a mom, not a professional speaker,” the Kokomo, Ind., native said. “All I ever wanted to be was a mom and when I got pregnant I just couldn’t wait.”

“White was born 22 and a half inches long, so skinny, but had the biggest feet so we hoped that he would be a basketball player,” she laughed. “That was short lived because he was circumcised and the bleeding wouldn’t stop.”

Shortly after White was circumcised the doctors knew something was wrong. The bleeding did not stop even after stitches were applied. He was immediately tested and hours later the doctors informed White’s mother that he suffered from severe hemophilia.

[Why the HELL is any baby ever circumcised before he is tested for haemophilia? Is any other surgery done without that test? Once again, circumcision gets a free pass.]

... After being diagnosed with hemophilia, White was given drugs created from plasma of non-hemophiliacs that had not yet been approved by the FDA.

“Little did we even realize the drug that was supposed to be saving his life was actually going to be the drug that took his life,” White-Ginder said.

...

8 comments:

  1. Notice the attempt to draw attention away from the needless procedure that necessitated any drugs to begin with.

    Talk about denial...

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  2. Thanks for digging this up. Very interesting once again how an attempt is made to diffuse the story and focus attention elsewhere.

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  3. I think the drugs would have been necessary with or without the circumcision injury. He was lucky to survive that at all, if he had not been circumcised, who knows if they would have known he was a hemophiliac. Or if another injury would have caused his death. We will never know. But I think, and I'm not a doctor, that he would have taken the drugs for hemophilia regardless, once they knew he was.

    I am asking myself the same question, why don't they test for that if they are going to circumcise? Maybe that is a huge part of the 117 average deaths a year from circumcision...

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  4. You may or may not have missed this part:

    "...he was circumcised and the bleeding wouldn’t stop."

    You say:

    "...if he had not been circumcised, who knows if they would have known he was a hemophiliac."

    That is the whole point Hugh Intactivist is trying to make; they would have known if he were actually tested to make sure he wouldn't bleed to death.

    It is very true that another injury could have caused the death. The point this misses is the fact that the boy died as a result of an elective, non-medical surgery. It is one thing to bleed to death as a result of an injury, it is quite another to bleed to death because you were deliberately wounded as a result of a non-therapeutic surgical amputation.

    I'm no doctor either, but my guess is that the doctors wanted to use a drug that was fast-acting, because a child's blood supply is so small in comparison to an older child. They took their chances with a non-FDA approved drug (Which, I don't think this is relevant anyway; remember the heparin fiasco?) which was not effective and may have in fact exacerbated the problem.

    Again, all secondary; had the child been tested first, they would have known not to put the child at risk.

    The drug story is superfluous, and truly pathetic.

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    1. I understand his point, I wasn't disagreeing with him. I was just trying to point out he would have been on the drugs that ultimately gave him HIV once it was discovered he needed them, with or without the circumcision. So that a reader didn't think oh, he got HIV because he was circumcised. I think it's ridiculous they do not test for this before doing such a horrid thing to newborn, perfect, babies. I am against circumcision all the way, just so there is no confusion about my intentions.

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    2. Who knows.

      Like I said. This is all speculation, but methinks the doctors acted in haste and tried what they thought would be a faster acting drug because they know what a fragile blood supply a baby has.

      Perhaps had they tested the child first, they would have had more time to think about it and had given him something that was better tested and FDA approved. (Though, as I've said in my last comment, I'm not exactly sure that would have been 100% infallible, given the FDA's history...)

      Again, for whatever reason, no one seems to question the fact that it was needless surgery that necessitated the need for a drug. The fact that a child was tested for hemophilia AFTER the fact ought to be raising eyebrows. But, like Hugh Intactivist points out, yet again, circumcision gets a free pass...

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  5. The lack of FDA approval wasn't why he got HIV. Born in 1971, he would have been infected with HIV - as thousands of haemophilics were - before there was any test for HIV in blood, or even before HIV was heard of. One reason is that in the US, blood donors were paid, attracting dropouts and junkies with contaminated blood. It's now generally agreed that voluntary donation gives a much better quality of blood.

    If he hadn't been circumcised, or not until his blood had been tested (in which case the logical/simplest thing to have done would be not circumcise), he would still be haemophilic, and still have been given the drugs, and almost certainly still have contracted HIV. (Infection with HIV by blood transfusion is very efficient, almost 100%). But they wouldn't have discovered it through uncontrollable bleeding from his circumcision wound, which must be a hell of a thing.

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    1. Yes, thank you, your last paragraph is pretty much what I was trying to say. You are obviously better with words than I am. It very much angers me that circumcision gets a free pass. Thanks for the work that you do in getting the word out!

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