Every Last Drop : How the Blood Industry Betrayed the Public Trust

After barely making it through Rutgers Law School, George Baxter practiced law from his 1975 Oldsmobile, bouncing from court to court taking per diem work from any lawyer who would give it to him. Then he met Bill Snyder who desperately needed a lawyer because he'd been infected with AIDS from a transfusion he received during heart surgery. Racing against time and poorly financed, George began a six-year legal battle against the billion-dollar-a-year blood industry that infected his client- as well as 29,000 other people - with AIDS. EVERY LAST DROP is written in the first person as the plaintiff's lawyer in the landmark trial Snyder v. American Association of Blood Banks. The trial exposed how the United States blood industry disseminated false information, hyjacked the FDA, and conspired to delay AIDS testing to save money, which resulted in the most devastating public health disaster in U.S. history. George's personal struggle surfaces throughout this narrative, alongside the stories of patients who suffered from AIDS but fought to stay alive for their exhausting trials. The case fueled a congressional investigation into dangerous blood industry practices and Federal Food And Drug Administration conflicts of interest that allowed this to happen. EVERY LAST DROP has a David and Goliath paradigm that centers on the universal themes of persistence, friendship, and the importance of trust over money, especially in the wake of a disaster. Dr. Donald P. Francis, formerly with the Centers for Disease Control AIDS Task Force and Dr. Marcus Conant, two of the country's leading Public health and AIDS experts, have written the introductions.