The cryptic letter arrived a few weeks after Maira Gutierrez donated blood for the first time in 1997. The Red Cross had rejected her blood. It listed a phone number to call. Gutierrez left a message, then waited three agonizing days for a reply, fearing she had HIV. The truth proved more confusing than reassuring: She had something called Chagas' disease, an ailment she'd never heard of, spread by a winged insect incongruously dubbed the "kissing bug."
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