Tainted Trust .com
The following is a tragic story about medical injustice and criminal negligence committed by the one of the largest medical institutions in the country.
During the early 1980's Cedars Sinai Medical Center in, Los Angeles, California, unknowingly infected over 100 children with HIV tainted blood. Two of the families affected have continued to fight for justice to this day. They include two individuals who have struggled to this day to let the world know about this tragedy: Bruce Kasper, a father who lost his daughter, Anique, to the AIDS virus when she was only 11 years old, and Alex Ghaffari who in 1982 was born two months premature. As a newborn Alex required an operation, which lead to a blood transfusion contaminated with HIV.
In early 1987 Dr. Tim Mundy from Cedars Sinai Medical Center contacted both Bruce and Alex's mother, Ann, to inform them that he was conducting a look-back study on neo-antes sponsored by the Center for Disease Control (CDC). "This study," he said "has revealed that at birth your child was given a blood transfusion from a donor who subsequently died of AIDS."
Because of the surgery, Ann was aware that Alex did receive a blood transfusion. However, Anique required no surgery and was given blood as part of her medical management; Bruce was NEVER informed that they performed blood transfusions on Anique. If Bruce had known that blood was necessary he was prepared to make directed donations himself so as to give his own blood to his daughter.
According to this "Look-Back" Study, identified as Project 42, the hospital had given 114 children HIV infected blood transfusions. Of that number, 33 of the families contacted agreed to be part of the CDC study. When asked what the study would entail, Mundy responded "You could bring your child back to Cedars, where they would be tested every 90 days." That was the extent of their concern and treatment.
Dr. Mundy told the parents of these infected children quite firmly and adamantly that insurance would be at your own expense; Cedars-Sinai would not assume any responsibility, or pay for any health care. He also warned them not to talk about or reveal to anyone what we (Cedars Sinai) have told you. He cautioned and stressed that your child and your family would be ostracized.
Because of this fear none of the families ever met each other during this time.
When each of these two families were finally able to think rationally they decided to seek legal guidance. They were each informed that since there was no way of testing for HIV before 1985 there was no chance of prevailing in a lawsuit based on medical malpractice.
They then decided to let go of any recourse through the court and instead put all focus on maintaining their children's health.
Over the next few years, Alex's health remained exceptional. His T-cell count was high and he had very few visits to the hospital. Because of this Ann decided to leave matters alone with Cedars and just focus on making Alex's life as safe and enjoyable as possible.
Unfortunately, Bruce and Anique's situation was quite the opposite. Anique's health was worsening rapidly. Bruce was forced to sit by helplessly, having to watch as his daughter started to slowly slip away. Unfortunately, Bruce and Anique's situation was quite the opposite. Anique's health was worsening rapidly. Bruce was forced to sit by helplessly, having to watch as his daughter started to slowly slip away.
In early 1990, because of the rise of insurance premiums for Anique's medical insurance, Bruce wrote to the then president of Cedars, Sheldon King, asking for help with medical costs. After numerous phone calls and letters Cedars finally offered to give PARTIAL coverage to Anique. The coverage only provided care for 9 specific AIDS related illness' and for care ONLY at Cedars. This limitation in treatment options forced Bruce and Anique to live in the Los Angeles area. And, this offer was ONLY made to Bruce specifically and only for Anique, as Cedars was not going to, nor did they ever later, offer it to the other families.
At this time Anique has been seeing Dr. Joseph Church at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles. Dr. Church is the most eminent and foremost pediatric AIDS specialist in Los Angeles. Because of the care and compassion that Dr. Church and his staff have given Anique they did not want to leave the Children's Hospital. Cedars would not give them coverage unless a Cedars physician saw them.
In January of 1992 Dr. Church requested a meeting with Bruce apart from their normal visits. Dr. Church told Bruce that Anique's condition was worsening. She had four to six months to live. He said that it was time to let go.
Bruce started to make some phone calls, and writing letters to newspapers, TV stations, and talk shows, anyone that he thinks could be of help. Articles started to appear in the Los Angeles Times, The Jewish Journal, and The Daily Breeze. Television segments aired on CNN, "A Current Affair" and "Extra."
The Hollywood Community opened its arms and showed the compassion that Cedars-Sinai was grossly lacking. Such celebrities as Jon Voight, Paul Newman, Sharon Stone, Luke Perry, Ben and Fred Savage visited Anique.
Anique had finally died on July 1, 1992.
After the funeral, Bruce received a phone call from Cedars stating that the president of the hospital, Sheldon King, would like to have a meeting with him. At this meeting Sheldon stated that because of your personal efforts the hospital has had a radical change of policy and will notify the other families and offer them the partial health coverage. Yet again, the coverage is only for LIMITED health care and only at Cedars.
Later that Year, Bruce had come into contact with Helen Kushnick, former manager of Jay Leno, and executive producer of "The Tonight Show." Helen had delivered twins, Sam and Sara, at Cedars a month before Anique was born. All three children were transfused. Sadly, Sam died three years later, in 1983, due to complications of AIDS. Bruce contacted her in the hopes of getting a list of names and numbers to the Board of Directors and Boards of Governors of Cedars in the hopes of getting full health coverage.
Helen had a copy and faxed it over to Bruce. Along with the list Helen included a deposition testimony given by her late husband, Jerrold, when they had filed a lawsuit against Cedars for Sam's death. It was dated November 11, 1983. On the second page of the document Jerrold said, "We insisted that the other children who had been in the neo-natal unit with Sam and Sara be contacted in the hopes we could possibly save another child's life."
This was an outrage! The hospital knew in 1983 that there was an outbreak of HIV in the neo-natal unit, but no one was notified until 1987. Cedars sat on this information for 4 years! Four years when everyone was at risk. Four years when the children should have been receiving treatment. Their silence was and still is simply outrageous and inexcusable.
With this information Bruce was able to file suit against Cedars based on failure to disclose, an intentional tort issue, which allows for punitive damages. The causes of action were fraudulent concealment, breach of fiduciary duty, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Bruce was introduced to Johnnie Cochran and Johnnie immediately took the case.
In an article from The Daily Breeze dated September 19,1993, Dr. Dennis Goldfinger, Chief of Transfusion Services at Cedars was asked by the reporter why they didn't notify the families after Sam's death. Goldfinger stated, "We had to weight the benefits of perhaps informing certain people and letting them know vs. the panic of all the people informed whose babies were not affected, considering our inability to give them assurances that the babes were OK." In effect he is saying that Cedar's didn't want to inform the sick kids for fear of alarming the parents of the healthy children. This article also shows that after the Death of Sam Kushnick from AIDS, Cedar's billed the Kushnicks for $94,000.
During the discovery process in December 1994, Cedars produced four letters from Dr. Goldfinger. Cedars wrote these letters to the Los Angeles County Health Department. The dates on the letters are; December 29,1983, November 15, 1984, April 9, 1985. Each of these letters identified a second case of post-transfusion related AIDS in a neonate, Sam being the first. These letters led to the identity of the donor, and the specific transfusion that took Bruce's daughter's life.
With this information, there can be no doubt that Cedars-Sinai, the Los Angeles Department of Health and the CDC, had full and complete knowledge of the post-transfusion related AIDS cases by 1983. Yet there was still no notification until 1987.
Bruce spent over nine months in a lower court trying to get this case to trail. Out of nowhere the judge recused herself. She gave no reason for leaving. A new judge came in and in all of two weeks he granted Cedars Motion for Summary Judgment, ruling that there are no trialable issues of fact. On the basis of the issue of standard care, it said that even though what Cedars was doing was wrong (not notifying the families) they are absolved from any liability because everyone else was doing it!
With the fight in court now over Bruce still continues to search for new pieces of evidence.
In 1997, Bruce requested from the CDC and the Los Angeles Department of Health, under the Freedom of Information Act, all documents pertaining to the Look-Back study (Project 42). Since this was a Government funded study there has to be more than just the four letters Cedars provided. CDC responded that they had nothing in their files. Bruce appealed four times. Finally on April 24, 2003 CDC notified Bruce that all the documents were destroyed in January of 1999, two years after Bruce's first request.
A glaring absence is that there is no reply from the L.A. County Health Department to the three letters Cedars sent them in 1983, 1984, and 1985. And, since the CDC provided funding for this "look-back" study, why was there no correspondence from them to Cedars, or from Cedars to the CDC? Strange how there is not one single letter or document anywhere connecting the three?
Alex, still very healthy at that time, was just finishing up college in San Francisco. He decided at this point in his life that he wanted to know more about the events at Cedars. It was through his research on the Internet that he came across Bruce's website.
Alex gave Bruce Kasper a phone call November of 2004. Bruce was quite excited to hear that there are other children infected during the same period of his daughter's transfusion who are still alive today. Over the next two hours a bond was immediately formed between Alex and Bruce. Bruce, who lost a child, and Alex who has a very distant father, instantly formed a symbolic father-son connection. Alex decided to move back to Los Angeles and work with Bruce in order to find closer together.
This period is the first time that Alex was informed of Cedars failing to notify the families of the HIV blood transfusions and the first time that Alex learned of the destruction of documents by the CDC and LA County. Alex was stunned. How can a government entity spend over $2,000,000 and not have any correspondence letters between the three institutions survive? How did they communicate? Alex decided to immediately contact legal resources. He contacted many prominent lawyers that have prevailed in recent legal cases with AIDS related transfusions. Unfortunately, they all stated that Alex's statute of limitations has expired.
Through his searching Alex was able to locate two other children, now adults, who were given HIV blood at birth from Cedars and are still alive to this day. Since Cedars kept them apart for so many years Alex wanted all the families to meet. Everybody got together at Bruce's home in January of 2005. All the survivors brought something new to the table. They all bonded and explained where they stood in regards to fighting the medical community. After that meeting Alex was very excited because this group of survivors could now stand together and speak out about this to date hushed-up tragedy.
A few weeks later Bruce had a private meeting with Senator Dianne Feinstein in order to seek government help in order to give explanation as to why CDC broke federal policy by the destroying the Project 42 study protocol folders. At this meeting Senator Feinstein ignored Bruce's concerns. She told him to move on with his life and put this behind him. Bruce felt betrayed.
When Alex heard about what had happened at the meeting he was disappointed. Alex decided to write a letter expressing his concern to all the politicians within the district, state, and federal level. Some of the politicians did help by writing a letter of concern to the Los Angeles County Health Department and Centers of Disease Control. The LA County had explained to me that they had nothing in their possession. At odds with Bruce's response from the CDC, they specifically told me that they had NOT DESTROYED the documents but had instead MISPLACED them. Which one of us are they lying to? Why the confusion over destroyed or misplaced documents? Why are they lying?
Alex would write back to Senator Diane Feinstein, Senator Barbara Boxer, Senator Barack Obama, Senator Dick Durbin, Congressmen Henry Waxman, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. None of these elected officials replied with anything positive. They forwarded off Alex's letter back to the CDC and LACHD. They felt that they had fulfilled their duty as public servants by letting the appropriate party respond. Once again, Alex felt betrayed. No Health or Government official could explain what happened accurately.
Since neither Cedars nor any government official has acted appropriately in regards to this, Alex and Bruce are forced to go to seek justice by going to the media and explaining these events as accurately as possible. Over the next couple of months major news media outlets will be reporting on the events and actions that Alex and Bruce have undertaken.
The sad part is, unless something is done, something similar could happen to anyone requiring medical treatment today: even you, or your loved ones. It is said that the truth is indeed the best defense. Given what has been found, you be the judge. What do you think? Your opinions, comments and support are welcome and valued. You can contact Alex at