As battle lines hardened, the conflict became a classic confrontation of public health and civil liberties. The Lambda Legal Defense Fund, a New York–based gay legal group, threatened to block release of the test in court. How could the government release a test that could have such devastating impact on so many American lives, without any safeguards? they asked. At the CDC, doctors who had worked on transfusion-AIDS research were dumbfounded. How could these people threaten to halt a test that could clearly save lives? By mid-February, the two sides had reached a standoff.
