Haitians Are Outraged by Dr. Michael Worobey's Research

By Aufap.org (Nov. 01, 2007) — In 1983, the Food and Drug Administration banned blood donations from Haitians who emigrated to the United States after 1977. Since then, Haitians grassroots organizations including doctors, professionals and students were watching and working closely with the agency to change its AIDS stigmatization on the Haitian people.

Although the CDC has dropped its stigmatization in the mid 80's linking Haitians directly with AIDS, Haitians all over the world suffer from a devastating social, psychological and economic discrimination in their everyday's life. In march of 1990, the F.D.A. finally revised this policy to once exclude all Haitians to now certain Haitians from donating blood as a safeguard against spreading AIDS. This new policy change upset even more the Haitian community at large and some Haitians say that's what upstaged the march of April 20th. 1990 across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Traffic came to a halt, as factory workers, professionals, students, old, young, disabled from all over the country marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest their outrage against the F.D.A. new policy change. Some have estimated the crowd at 60,000 to 100,000. Later that afternoon in Washington DC, the F.D.A. abandoned its policy on excluding blood donors based on geography or national origin.

Some 17 years later, this new study by Dr. Michael Worobey published recently in The Sciences Journal now brought back the bitter memory of the past to the Haitian people living all over the world. Once again, the radio stations, the print media, the bloggers, your every day man on the street are talking about it. "We are mad, this so called Doctor doesn't know what he's talking about" said Jean-Pierre, a taxi driver we interviewed on the street of New York. People are mobilizing to what could be a repeat of the April 20th. March across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Professionals in the fields of AIDS research have concluded that Dr. Michael Worobey's research is insufficient and failed to provide any new data. His findings are based on calculating and comparing old existing data.