While I generally agree the idea that it's not harmful enough to stop a transfer, I disagree with the basis of the argument.

We could also say that given a choice between death and HIV, the blood recipient would still want the blood.

With respect to HIV, there is an alternative to get non-contaminated blood.

With respect to PFAS, which is a general societal/environmental issue it's likely that all donated blood has roughly the same PFAS levels, so recipient either gets blood with PFAS or no blood at all; and the "new" blood might have slightly more or less PFAS than the recipients current blood, but the recipient already has a comparable level of PFAS anyway.

I would argue additionally that once the person in need of blood has recovered they can simply donate blood and in so doing enjoy the benefits of reduced PFAS levels and hopefully save someone else's life with that blood!

Yes, and that is a better argument than someone simply being desperate enough to accept contaminated blood rather than die.

> given a choice between death and HIV, the blood recipient would still want the blood

…yes?

if there is no other choice. Yes, reluctantly, I would accept hiv. (i.e. I accept days to years duration of life vs minutes to hours)

The thing is, donated blood is always in short supply. you dont have much choice, when you have a serious blood-loss.

edit: I would be very angry if sombody would have chosen to use hiv blood on me while I was uncounciuos. Similar to how I would be angry if my arm would be amputated, while my conciousness was away.