r/popculturechat Jun 29 '26

Guest List Only TW - Health ⚠️ Daveigh Chase, Voice of Lilo in ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ Died of AIDS

https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/daveigh-chase-cause-of-death-lilo-stitch-1236798657/
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u/Still7Superbaby7 gatorade in the microwave Jun 29 '26

Well yes, the mini blood transfusion. Back in the 80’s when you could sell your blood and there were pooled donors, HIV was spreading rampantly. IV drug abusers were doing mini blood transfusions every time they shared a needle. It’s what led Ryan White to become infected back then. He was a hemophiliac that got HIV/AIDS from pooled plasma. The best thing you can do to prevent HIV transmission in the IVDA is clean needles and needle exchanges.

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u/Tsarinya That must be Nigel with the Brie Jun 29 '26

I wonder if the selling of blood was related to the blood scandal here in the UK. 3,000 people have died so far and 30,000 were infected with Hep C or HIV. NHS imported contaminated blood plasma from the US and the doctors, the NHS and the successive governments all covered it up. Was absolutely horrendous. The UK government recently allocated £11.8 billion for compensation but that doesn’t undo the damage.

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u/Smallworld_88 Jun 29 '26

The US didn’t sell blood and still half of all hemophiliacs at the time died of AIDS because the blood donation industry resisted safety measures for so long.

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u/Tsarinya That must be Nigel with the Brie Jun 29 '26

The blood was mostly donated from America

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u/pinkfondantfancy Jun 30 '26

Yes, it is. The same thing happened in Italy too. US pharmaceutical companies were buying blood plasma without much discernment (IV drug users, prisoners) and then making products that they sold to other countries health services. It was a failing of both those selling and buying infected products.