Doctor Guilt
“Doctor Guilt”
by Everett Winslow Lovrien, MD
Thirty years ago, Dr. Everett Lovrien was one of thousands of doctors who treated hemophiliac patients with an innovative coagulant that was later found to be contaminated with hepatitis and HIV. Investigators laid the blame on the profit-motivated pharmaceutical manufacturer, which ignored safety procedures that could have prevented the tragedy.
In this newly released book, Lovrien relates a personal, heart-wrenching depiction of the patients to whom he prescribed the lethal medication.
“The medicine was manufactured from the plasma of paid blood donors,” Lovrien explain in the book. “Unexpectedly, a dark cloud descended when persons infusing the medicine became ill. It was discovered that the new medicine was polluted with hepatitis viruses and HIV. By the time of discovery it was too late to prevent infection. The boy and 10,000 others in the USA became infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He died from AIDS at age seventeen rather than having a prolonged life that was intended with the new medicine. The medicine was sold to other countries resulting in thousands of deaths from AIDS all over the world.”
The book includes stories from the hemophilia treatment center where Lovrien worked, as well as information on the history of hemophilia, the appearance of HIV and hepatitis in patients, and the guilt he felt for prescribing the lethal medication.
Although not directly related to chiropractic, the book is one of several that underscore the deadly risks often associated with drugs, and can take its place on the bookshelf next to Marcia Angell’s “The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What To Do About It,” and Katharine Greider’s “The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips off American Consumers.”
