Blood and Betrayal: The Untold History

By Norwood Hill

In 1990, medical politicians conducted a hostile takeover of the Wadley Research Institute and Blood Bank, in fear of the economic consequences of doing a hepatitis C lookback. That ended 56 years of service by my father in 1975, then myself in 1990, as the medical directors/CEOs of the principle blood bank in Dallas Texas. In the 1980s, AIDS, then hepatitis C viruses were discovered. Blood banks began screening donations for these viruses to protect patients receiving the blood. But what about patients who were infected by transfusions before screening tests were developed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543994377

Book preview

Blood and Betrayal. Copyright © 2019 Norwood Oakley Hill, M. D. All rights the property of Norwood O. Hill LLC. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of Norwood O. Hill LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN 978-1-54399-436-0 eBook 978-1-54399-437-7

Cover designed by Ann Winkler of winkdesignmurals.com. The background figures in the front cover are derived from Cornucopia, an encaustic painting by David Oakley Hill.

Contents

Dedication

Forward

Preface

Introduction

Joseph MacGlashan, Hill M.D.: Background and Career

Norwood O. Hill, M.D.: Background and Education

Chapter 1 The Early Years

Establishing blood banking in Dallas and Texas

The Invention of the ADTEVAC blood plasma drying machine

A 75-year leap forward to October 2014: Ebola

Back to 1940 from the Ebola future

Origin of the International Society of Hematology

J.K. Wadley and Keener Bob Mosley

Rh factor research and development at Baylor’s William

Buchanan Blood Center

Texas City disaster: Founding the American Association

of Blood Banks

Goodman and Gilman, Sidney Farber, and the dawn

of chemotherapy

Planning and incorporation of the Wadley Institute

Chapter 2 The J.K. and Susie L. Wadley Research Institute

and Blood Bank

6-mercaptopurine (1953)

Nina Beth Hawkins

Years of perseverance

Dr. Ellen Loeb: Her Journey from Auschwitz to Wadley

Chapter 3 L-Asparaginase

Censure? Dallas County Medical Society controversy

L-asparaginase and the Wadley Board of Trustees

L-asparaginase background

L-asparaginase timeline

Chapter 4 Norwood Hill Named Blood Bank Medical Director

Hepatitis B

More medical politics: Funding a new blood bank building

Danny Parish: Achieving all-volunteer blood banking in Texas

Chapter 5 The Death of Founder J.K. Wadley

Wadley’s Granddaughter Sues Wadley Institutes

What were the actual facts?

Chapter 6 Platinum

Chapter 7 Gordon L. Dorn, PhD, Inventor

Chapter 8 Rejuvenated Frozen Red Blood Cells

Chapter 9 Interferon

Chapter 10 Genetic Engineering and Interleukins

Chapter 11 The Goddard Computer Science Institute

Chapter 12 The AIDS Epidemic

Contaminated blood supply

CDC Seeks to Control the Epidemic

Stanford blood banker develops T-cell surrogate test

AIDS testing begins

A Visit to Vancouver British Columbia

Counseling Infected Donors

Continued need to exclude high risk donors

Outcome of surrogate test AIDS screening

Non-A, Non-B hepatitis surrogate testing

Chapter 13 Lookback: Finding Patients Previously Infected

by Blood Transfusions

Chapter 14 The Human T-Cell Lymphotropic Virus

HTLV-1: Counseling infected donors

Chapter 15 Hepatitis C Controversies and the

Wadley Blood Bank Hostile Takeover

The Discovery of the hepatitis C virus in brief

The New York Blood Center Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis

Conference (October 27, 1988)

Emperor Hirohito and hepatitis C

January 1989: HTLV-1 lookback portends hepatitis C lookback

Baylor Hospital hosts a luncheon with D Magazine editor

Meeting with Ortho Diagnostics about hepatitis C

The hepatitis C antibody research protocol

D Magazine reporters request an interview

Hospitals action plan

Hospitals anticipate hepatitis C virus antibody testing

August 21, 1989: The Ortho test kits arrive

August and September 1989

Continuing D Magazine and hospital takeover events

Déjà vu: A lookback for hepatitis C

Ensuing Actions

Aftermath

March 1998 FDA hepatitis C lookback recommendation

Chapter 16 Tortious Interference with Contract Lawsuit

Chapter 17 Progress in Infectious Disease Screening

and Lookback

Lookback for donations testing positive for infectious agents

Hepatitis C lookback in other countries

CHAPTER 18 Hepatitis C Outcome

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my family, but especially to my late loving wife and best friend for 58 years, Sarah Steel Hill, and our wonderful children, Lawrence M. Hill and his wife, Cathleen Kern Hill, G. Scott Hill and his wife, Patricia Rich Hill, my daughter, Jennifer Hill Haggerty, and my son-in-law, John Jude Haggerty. I further dedicate this to our delightful grandchildren Katy, Jack, and Archie Haggerty and Jessica, Maggie, and Lindsay Hill.

I also dedicate this in memory of our deceased son David Oakley Hill. He was the beginning of our family when we adopted him thinking that we could not have children. He brought the joy of parenthood into our lives and I shall always miss him.

And, of course, this is dedicated to my parents, Joseph MacGlashan Hill and Isobel Pogue Hill, who made so much possible for me and my siblings, Robert W. Hill, M.D., Joseph M Hill, Jr., Barbara Hill Lanius, and Patricia Hill Lindsay.

And to Nina Beth Hawkins.

Forward

Most people don’t have to make decisions during their lives that could end their career.

Our father’s career was terminated early because he put the patient above profit. My father, and many of his generation truly abided by the physician’s credo: do no harm. This goal, unfortunately, concerned some hospitals far less than profits.

In the 1980s, the world was confronted with the AIDS epidemic; a few years later, the world saw the beginning of the hepatitis C crisis in blood banking.

Our nation was fortunate in that one of the leading hematologists of the time had a personal connection to the crisis. In 1979, our brother David announced that he was gay. Fortunately, our parents were accepting, loving people, who only cared about David’s happiness and well-being. Our father’s primary concern when David came out was his risk for AIDS. Unfortunately, he did later contract the disease, but because our father always kept him on the cutting edge of treatment, he was able to live for 19 years after his diagnosis. David was one of the fortunate ones. He was always accepted, loved, and appreciated. We met many people during his life who were rejected by their families and friends, and died alone.

Our father, from the inception of the AIDS epidemic, was acutely aware of the issues and repercussions associated with the disease. The most controversial aspect of this crisis was the Lookback program. In fact, this meant that if you determined that a blood donor had AIDS, you would notify any person who had received blood from said donor so that the person would know to seek assessment and treatment.

Hospitals and Doctors were afraid of the Lookback concept. Patients were filing lawsuits because they had contracted AIDS. Even though it was the right thing to do, it was a huge risk to tell the patient that they were at risk before they actually showed any symptoms

Our father is our hero, because he always puts others first, whether as a doctor, as a dad, or as a friend.

Lawrence Marshall Hill

G. Scott Hill

Jennifer Hill Haggerty

Preface

In 1990, hospital and medical officials conducted a hostile takeover of the J.K. and Susie L. Wadley Research Institute and Blood Bank. That ended nearly 56 years of my father and I serving as the medical directors and CEOs of the principle blood bank in Dallas, Texas.

How and why did this occur? In the 1980s, scientists discovered and developed tests to identify AIDS, T-cell leukemia, and hepatitis C virus infections. In March 1985, blood banks began screening donations for blood contaminated with AIDS virus. Many donors testing positive for AIDS had donated blood in previous years. Thus, their donations may have transmitted AIDS to the transfused patients. In November 1985, I proposed looking back in time to contact patients that were possibly infected. Some within the medical community strongly opposed doing so. In 1986, however, the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) implemented AIDS lookback. Federal regulators at the food and drug administration (FDA) mandated the program for all U.S. blood banks and hospitals.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) was another story. The FDA licensed a screening test in May 1990. However, the FDA delayed hepatitis C lookback for nearly a decade due to opposition within the medical community.

Why were they opposed? Fear. AIDS lookbacks triggered expensive lawsuits against blood banks, hospitals, and physicians. Hepatitis C lookback procedures needed to contact far more patients going back years further than for AIDS. Litigation could be much more expensive.

What should be done? HCV infection was insidious; it could lurk silently for years before resulting in cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer, or death. Patients had every right to know they should be tested for HCV infection. Doctors and hospitals would be betraying their patients if they concealed that information from them.

What did they do? HCV lookback opponents did nothing for as long as they could until the problems slowly died out.

In the mid-1930s, my father started Texas’ first blood bank at Baylor Hospital in Dallas. It may have preceded Chicago’s Cook County Hospital Blood Bank which is considered the nation’s first. Baylor’s blood bank became known as the William Buchanan Blood and Plasma Center. In 1952, the J. K. And Susie L. Wadley Research Institute and Blood Bank became the Buchanan center’s successor. Wadley was the principal blood bank in Dallas until it merged with Fort Worth’s Carter Blood Center in the early 1990s to become Carter BloodCare.

The Wadley’s only grandson died of leukemia in 1943 and they founded their research institute and blood bank to fight it. Wadley scientists conducted significant research in the treatment of leukemia and cancer. Several firsts included development of L-asparaginase for leukemia, the first use of the platinum compounds for cancer chemotherapy, and the first interferon production laboratory in the United States. These and other research developments are discussed in the following chapters.

This book is a history of medical achievements amid contentious times, including medical politics. It spans from the time before World War II to the transfusion safety challenges of new virus diseases.

Introduction

Joseph MacGlashan, Hill M.D.: Background and Career

My father, Joseph MacGlashan, Hill, M.D. , then I, practiced hematology, oncology and blood banking in Dallas from 1934 through 1990.

Dad was a man with boundless physical and intellectual energy. He was born on March 26, 1905, in Buffalo, New York, the fifth of seven children. His father, William Hill, was a craftsman whose Hill Manufacturing Company made carriages and carriage accessories before the automobile. According to family lore, he made parts for the Thomas Flyer, the first car to go around the world. The movie, The Great Race, starring Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood, was based on that trip.

His mother, Cassie Groh Hill, was an inspiration to the academic success of all her children. His older brothers, Ernest, William Oakley, and Norwood Mellville Hill, became respectively a dentist, a surgeon, and an attorney. His older sister, Kitty, married the chief chemist for General Motors, Ledra Lawton, PhD. His two younger sisters, Esther and Keith, married surgeons George Young, M.D., and David Johnson, M.D. My dad once remarked that he was motivated to do so well in school because every time he brought a good grade home it made his mother so happy.

My father had an early and insatiable interest in all aspects of science. As a teenager, he had a laboratory on the third floor of the family house at 134 Claremont Avenue. He learned chemistry, and built some of the earliest vacuum tube radios in Buffalo in about 1920. He used his radio to listen to faraway programs, including broadcasts from the Blackstone Hotel in Fort Worth, Texas, never dreaming that most of his professional accomplishments would occur in nearby Dallas.

He also developed an interest in sports. He ran hurdles on the track team in high school and college while at the University of Buffalo. Along with the rest of his family, he had a passion for the outdoors. Most of his summer vacations involved hiking, mountain climbing, backpacking, and fishing with our family.

In our home, evening meals included many fascinating discussions. We discussed history, science, world events, and medicine. Dad had many hobbies and always had a project. When he wasn’t reading his journals or writing medical articles (in the early years, grading the papers of medical students), he was in his shop working on the latest project. He was an amateur astronomer. He carefully crafted both six-inch and ten-inch reflecting telescopes even going so far as to grind and polish the parabolic lenses by hand. He also helped his grandsons Lawrence Marshall Hill, John Walter Lanius, Jr., and Joseph MacGlashan Hill IIIgrind their own six-inch telescope lenses. He taught his children and grandchildren alike some of his hobby skills. We learned basic woodworking while he built beautiful cabinetry for his library and high-fidelity stereo system. Those cabinets in the Dallas home on Avalon Avenue are now owned by another family. When I was recently invited into the home to see them, they still looked as beautiful as they did more than sixty years ago.

He developed his own black and white, and color photographs and taught us some of those same skills. He built three boats, including a 14-foot speedboat, a 21-foot cabin cruiser, and a small racing boat. He built that racing boat with the son of Italian hematologist Giovanni Astaldi. While I was away at Baylor Medical School in Houston, Giovani’s son (Alberto Astaldi) spent a summer with my mother and father. My sister Patricia lived with the Astaldi family in Italy. Of course, there had to be a project to work on with Alberto. He helped Alberto build a motorized racing skiff. Alberto shipped the boat back to Italy at the end of the summer. Incidentally, Alberto later became an outstanding European medical scientist specializing in transplantation. As for boat building, my brothers and I helped finish the 21-foot cabin cruiser in the days before power screwdrivers. We drove hundreds of Phillips head screws by hand as we gradually wrapped the marine plywood around the boat frame. Suffice it to say that when we were finished everybody had a very powerful right forearm.

My father never missed an opportunity for an outdoor adventure. After the International Society of Hematology meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1952, he and colleague, Sol Haberman, PhD, and their friend Dr. Walter Seegars stopped in Cabo Blanco, Peru, to fish for pacific Black Marlin. They rented the Miss Texas, a boat owned by famed Houston sportsman Alfred Glassel, Jr. It was the first time Dad had ever fished in the ocean. The Marlin that he caught weighed 991 pounds. At that time, it was the tenth largest fish ever caught on rod and reel. Glassel held the world record at 1025 pounds. Talk about beginner’s luck!

This introduction tells you something about the kind of person my dad was. He was a philanthropist. He carefully explained the meaning of that word: it meant a love of humanity. Dad was never wealthy or in one of the more highly-paid medical specialties but he made a good living. He gave to every financial campaign when he was on the staff of Baylor Hospital in Dallas. Also, to the best I can determine, the total amount he gave to Wadley Research Institute and Blood Bank exceeded his lifetime earnings as CEO. In the final balance, he earned his living only from his medical practice. In their practice, he and his partner Ellen Loeb, M.D. (later Ellen Loeb-Katz), treated all leukemia patients regardless of their ability to pay.

I remember an object lesson to me personally during the mid-1940s when I was a small child. As the collection plate came around during services at Highland Park Methodist Church, I realized that I only had a dollar bill. I had earned it 25 cents at a time mowing lawns or other tasks. I had no change. I only had the dollar bill. In those days, that could pay for 20 after-school sodas or ice cream cones. I struggled with my conscience and made the difficult decision to put the dollar in the plate. In the car after church, my dad turned and handed me a