The High Price Of Bad Blood

It looks as though Baxter International Inc. is about to take another hit. Within weeks, it may be forced to reserve hundreds of millions of dollars to help redress one of the saddest accidents in medical history: the infection of thousands of hemophiliacs with HIV-tainted blood-clotting products.

The National Hemophilia Foundation, representing more than 10,000 members affected by AIDS, has set a Sept. 30 deadline for Baxter and four other suppliers to lay out a plan for establishing a fund to compensate hemophiliacs who contracted AIDS through clotting agents. Sources involved in the secret negotiations have told BUSINESS WEEK the NHF is demanding $5 billion, of which some $1.5 billion would come from Baxter and three other suppliers, and the rest from the federal government.