A Failure to Thrive: My Personal Account of the Canadian Blood Disaster

Book Synopsis: A Failure to Thrive offers a unique viewpoint on the story of the tainted blood scandal in Canada and how it affected one family and their sick son. It also paints the portrait of an Erin Brockovich–type heroine in Leslie, who fights for justice for those too sick to fight for themselves. The book is a memoir that reads like a nonfiction thriller as we follow Leslie from the day she’s notified that her chronically ill son Jarad contracted hepatitis C from a tainted blood transfusion. From there, she set out to find answers. In her search, Leslie learned of a massive cover-up. Due in part to her tireless research, the court ultimately found that the Canadian Red Cross and government officials, in a move to save money, did not use proven surrogate screening of the blood supply until 1990, nine years after the US instituted their testing. And then they covered it up, even shredding official documents. In the middle of the political and legal drama, there is Leslie and her family. The story cuts back and forth between lawyered-up opponents and Jarad’s slow and horrific decline—at his worst, weighing a mere forty-six pounds at age twelve and only weeks from death. This book is about a Canadian national health tragedy, but it is also a story that crosses borders to anywhere bureaucrats decide how taxpayer dollars will be spent at the expense of public safety. It’s an inside look at backroom government failures and cover-ups; it is also the story of how these failures affected one very sick boy and his family. Leslie Sharp invites readers into her home and shares, with raw honesty, the struggles and triumphs of a family in the face of crisis. We watch Leslie and Peter’s marriage dissolve. We cheer for Leslie when, after their divorce, she reclaims her health, losing over a hundred pounds, and moves to Honolulu, Hawaii, to start over as a small business owner. The story ends on a high note, reporting that a healthy Jarad Gibbenhuck spent his early twenties living in Whistler Village, British Columbia, where he worked for a snowboard outfitter and competed in snowboarding competitions. This year, Jarad turned thirty and moved to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where he works at a surf and skate shop.