When I was born in 1984 in Philadelphia, my dad claims that I was given a blood transfusion that doctors didn't know was safe from AIDS. The reason, he said, is that AIDS was known be dangerous, but "leftist special interests" banned hospitals from testing blood for AIDS. The result, he claims, is that lots of people were given AIDS-infected blood transfusions, and "hemophiliacs suffered hugely" from this.
Now, I have reason to be suspicious of this claim. I can't find any evidence online that this happened, my dad's been known to exaggerate political realities, and frankly if this did happen it would be Tuskegee-syphilis-level fucked up. Does anyone know if AIDS testing was banned or delayed for any reason?
Full disclosure: my dad is a right-wing tea party person, and I'm a softy lefty.
Edit: u/WaffleDynamics's answer below is good, and I also found this NYT article from 1985 describing the blood testing delays and reasons for them.
According to The Henry J. Kiser Family Foundation's page about the history of HIV The virus wasn't even identified until 1984, and the first test was approved in 1985.
And here is a paper that summarizes the confusion surrounding the state of the blood supply during the early years of the AIDS crisis.