創佳

THE RAY FAMILY

HEMOPHILIAC CHILDREN

Compassionate Americans who were horrified by the way neighbors treated the young hemophiliac with AIDS Ryan White (see card 55) in Indiana also viewed with equal horror the persecution of the three Ray boys in rural Florida in 1987.

Clifford and Louise Ray, of the small central Florida town of Arcadia, had four children, three boys and a girl. The boys all had hemophilia, an inherited disease in which blood fails to clot after an injury. Through taking clotting products that were made from human blood before donors were tested for HIV, the boys were infected with the virus. In 1986 tests revealed that they were HIVpositive (but without AIDS symptoms), and they were barred from Arcadia's schools. Charging discrimination, the parents sued the school board, and a court ordered that the boys be readmitted.

In August 1987, Richard Ray (aged 10), Robert Ray (9), and Randy Ray (8) went back to their former school despite a boycott that kept nearly half the other children at home. The Rays received telephoned death threats, and one day a bomb scare cleared the school. When a fire damaged the Ray home and arson was suspected, the case gained national attention. Many people sympathized with the parents who wished to give their children a normal life, and the nearby city of Sarasota welcomed the Rays. In 1989, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (see card 96) honored Sarasota for its hospitality. Richard Ray died of AIDS on December 13, 1992. As techniques for testing blood and screening donors for HIV improved, transfusions have become a much less common way of transmitting AIDS. (See cards 67 and 87)

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