HERGÉ 1907—1983
Georges Remi, known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian cartoonist and creator of “Tintin” and “The Adventures of Tintin” series. He was anaemic and given weekly blood transfusions. He was severely ill for several years and his death was hastened with HIV he unknowingly contracted through transfused tainted blood.
DAMON COURTENAY 1967—1991
Son of author Bryce Courtenay (1933-2012), Damon was born with the blood condition haemophilia and died at age 24 from AIDS-related complications, contracted through a blood transfusion contaminated with HIV. He died 1st April 1991, hence the massive best seller book “April Fool’s Day” written by his father, Bryce (published 1993).
ARTHUR ASHE 1943—1993
Arthur Ashe, tennis champion, who spent his years in the sport fighting discrimination and then spent the final year of his life seeking to broaden public awareness on the subject of AIDS. He was the only black man to win Wimbledon and the United States and Australian Opens. Ashe, who contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through a transfusion of tainted blood during his second round of heart-bypass surgery in 1983, first learned of his infection after he entered New York Hospital for emergency brain surgery in September 1988. He was hospitalized after he suffered paralysis of his right arm, the one that served up 26 aces the day he became the 1968 United States Open champion. The surgery and a subsequent biopsy revealed the presence of toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection linked to AIDS.
EVE VAN GRAFHORST 1982—1993
DAME ANITA RODDICK 1942—2007
Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, contracted the Hepatitis C disease after a 1971 transfusion during the birth of her youngest daughter. In February 2007 she announced she was dying from Hepatitis C she had contracted from a tainted blood transfusion. Dame Anita said she had unknowingly lived with “this silent killer” for three decades and only found out about it two years ago after a blood test.
EVEL KNIEVEL 1938—2007
Robert Craig Knievel, known as ‘Evel Knievel’, contracted the Hepatitis C disease after one of the numerous blood transfusions he received prior to 1992, unknowingly tainted with Hepatitis C. In the late 1990s Evel was so ill he needed a life-saving liver transplant as a result of suffering the long-term effects from Hepatitis C. In February 1999 he received a donated liver and lived for another 8 years.
RED CROSS MALFEASANCE CAUSED THEIR DEATHS