18 - The Prince George Citizen - Saturday, October 16,1993
Health
AIDS VICTIM PROTESTS BENETTON CAMPAIGN
PARIS (AP) — An AIDS sufferer angered by a Benetton advertising campaign’s AIDS theme took out his own ad showing his face with hollow cheeks and the caption: “During the agony, the sale continues.’’ Benetton already was sued for the equivalent of $230,000 Cdn by two AIDS activist groups in France for its ad campaign last month. The ads, introducing Benetton’s fall-winter collection, showed models with the tattoo “HIV positive,” referring to the AIDS virus.
The Italian clothcs-makcr, known for using shock as a gimmick in its publicity campaigns, said the ads were an effort to raise awareness about AIDS.
But Olivier Besnard-Rousseau, 30, who says he is dying of AIDS was not pleased. He paid $18,500 to express his anger in a full-page ad in the newspaper Liberation on Monday.
His picture was stamped “HIV positive,” and a note at the bottom said the ad was aimed at Benetton by Besnard-Rousseau, described as “sick with AIDS, terminal phase.” In an interview published Wednesday by the newspaper Le Parisien, he said when he first spotted the Benetton poster, “I felt like I was punched in the stomach. I wanted to cry,”
Olivier Toscani, creator of Benetton’s ad campaign, told French radio RTL that he personally apologized for the ad.
But he said that Benetton has maintained a strategy of lending its ads to “major social issues” and that the company has received numerous letters from people with AIDS supporting the campaign.
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Blood screens below today’s standards
VANCOUVER (CP) — Canadian Red Cross screening procedures to detect the virus believed to cause AIDS in the early 1980s were below the public health standard, says a senior scientist with the Centre for Disease Control.
“The policies of the CRC were unreasonable and imprudent,” Dr. Donald Francis, a senior scientist with the Atlanta, Ga.,-based disease control centre, says in evidence presented to the B.C. Supreme Court.
“They did not, and probably could not, discourage blood donations from individuals whom the CRC knew or ought to have known were at risk for HIV infections.”
Francis’s summary of evidence are contained in documents filed in a law suit against the Red Cross by a man, known only as John Doe, who developed AIDS after receiving infected blood donated in January 1984.
The suit was settled out of court.
“The screening procedures of the CRC in use at the time the man in question donated blood given to the plaintiff in January 1984 was virtually bound to fail and fell well below the public health standard of care to be ex-
pected of a reasonable blood agency of the position of the CRC,” Francis said in his summary of evidence.
Lawyer Bruce Lemer said he was prohibited from disclosing terms of the settlement. He would not discuss his client’s current health or anything else that could identify him.
The Red Cross rejected Francis’s comments.
Angela Prokopiak of the Red Cross’s national office in Ottawa said that in a similar case, Francis was prohibited from testifying as an expert witness.
She questioned the validity of his comments and of any other comments finding fault with the conduct of the Red Cross during the early years of the AIDS crisis.
“The screening procedures used by the Red Cross were appropriate to the situation in Canada and the knowledge and understanding of AIDS at that time,” she said.
The statements paint a picture of Canada’s blood bank agency failing to follow the lead of similar organizations in the United States and Australia in taking steps to protect the blood supply during the early years of the AIDS crisis.
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- CORRECTION -
Due to a printing error in this week’s Extra Foods Flyer (October 17 - 23rd, 1993) the following item which appeared on page 8 should have read:
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