In 1986, despite programs to have persons with known risk factors for exposure to the AIDS virus exclude themselves from the blood donating population and the universal testing of all donated whole blood and blood components for the antibody to HIV, the public was fearful of acquiring AIDS via transfusion and media stories increased that fear. A major concern among members of the blood banking community was the extent to which donors infected with HIV were not identified by enzyme-linked immunoassay (EIA) systems. Most experts believed that self-deferral and the assays for the HIV antibody were eliminating the vast majority of positive units of donated blood and blood components. If all units containing HIV were being eliminated by the combined effects of self-deferral and antibody screening (and treatment of factor VIII concentrates), no recipients of only screened whole blood or blood components or factor VIII would become HIV virus and antibody positive as the result of transfusion. Alternately, if some HIV positive units of whole blood or blood components or factor VIII concentrates were not being eliminated by self-deferral and antibody screening (and treatment of factor VIII concentrates), and these units were transfused, then some transfusion recipients would become HIV antibody positive and viremic.