Lord Owen pursues the matter of the HIV contaminated blood scandal.

Former minister raises fear of HIV blood cover-up - Guardian

Extract:

"New concerns are raised today that government officials attempted to cover up evidence that they could have stopped thousands of people becoming infected with HIV from contaminated blood supplies. Lord Owen, who was a Labour health minister in the 1970s, says he has unearthed the first concrete proof that officials knew more than 30 years ago that there was an increased risk of contracting hepatitis from imported blood products.

More than 1,700 people went on to die and many are terminally ill after contracting hepatitis C and then HIV from infected blood during treatment for haemophilia in the 1970s and 80s. Lord Owen, who as health minister pledged that Britain would no longer import blood products, has found a document from the Department of Health which shows officials knew in February 1976 that imported blood products were "more costly" to the NHS and came with a "higher hepatitis risk" - something that has been consistently denied.

The discovery comes ahead of Lord Owen's appearance today at the independent public inquiry into the contaminated blood scandal, chaired by the former solicitor-general Lord Archer of Sandwell. Lord Owen is expected to query why several volumes of documents relating to the issue were destroyed at a time when a similar HIV-tainted blood scandal was erupting in France. "This may be a coincidence - but it may also be a reason why the documents were destroyed. The inquiry will find out if there is any deliberate cover-up or simply maladministration."

As health minister from 1974 to 1976 the then David Owen was concerned about the hepatitis risk when he pledged Britain should stop importing blood products in January 1975. For more than 20 years he has repeatedly been told by officials that there was no known risk. Describing the document as a gem, Lord Owen said: "We now at last have actual evidence from the department that corroborates ... that we knew [the imported product] was more likely to be contaminated. What is important is that here they are in February 1976 - and they more or less concede every argument: it is cheaper to go for self-sufficiency and there is higher hepatitis risk [from imported products]."

Since 1988 Lord Owen, who went on to become foreign secretary before later leading the SDP, has battled to see evidence backing up what he was told by doctors and officials at the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) during his time as health minister. The DHSS pulped his official papers 10 years after he left the department, without telling him - an action he describes as "inexplicable"."

I do hope that there will be no further cover-up of this disgraceful episode.

Lord Winston considers this imported blood products scandal "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS".

Officials 'knew of Aids risk' in US blood imports - Telegraph

Extracts:

"Government advisers were aware that patients were in danger of contracting Aids from imported blood products as early as 1983 but decided against a ban due to fears of causing a shortage of supply.

The Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) knew that "patients who repeatedly receive blood clotting-factor concentrates appear to be at risk" of Aids.

It was also aware that the risks were highest if the blood products came "from the blood of homosexual and IV drug users in areas of high incidence - e.g. New York and California" and for those who repeatedly received high doses of the blood plasma products.

A possible link between Aids and blood transfusions was known about in December 1982, but it took another four years before safer, heat-treated products reached Britain. However, the CSM still ruled that the risk of contracting Aids had to be balanced against their "life-saving" benefits."

"Yesterday at the resumption of an inquiry into what the Labour peer, Lord Winston, has described as "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS", victims and their relatives gave emotional accounts about living with HIV and/or hepatitis C.

Stephen Martin-Hanley, 37, who also has haemophilia, told the hearing that he felt the stress of him having HIV and hepatitis C status had killed his father. He said he was 13 years old when he was told he had been given HIV-contaminated treatment.

Reading a statement from his mother, after she became too emotional to read it herself, he said it was likely that his father, who administered his treatment, had given him the "fatal injection"."

Sue Threakall, whose husband Bob died aged 47 in 1991, has accused the government of ignoring warnings, and doctors of ignoring the Hippocratic oath.

Widow accuses doctors over donor blood risks - Guardian

Extract:

"The widow of a haemophiliac who contracted HIV through contaminated blood products given on the NHS has accused the government of ignoring warnings, leaving 5,000 people to be infected in a "wholly avoidable tragedy".

Sue Threakall, whose husband Bob died aged 47 in 1991, also accused doctors of ignoring the Hippocratic oath by treating patients without telling them of the risk of infection from HIV or hepatitis C.

She said doctors also failed to tell patients when they were being tested for HIV, and to tell them immediately if they tested positive. Her husband was not told for six months, despite doctors knowing the couple were having unprotected sex. Mrs Threakall said: "Warnings were ignored, lessons were not learned and our community was lied to by the people it should have trusted most."

Mrs Threakall, 54, a teacher from Barnstaple, Devon, was speaking on the first day of an independent public inquiry into the supply of contaminated blood plasma to haemophiliacs by the NHS in the 1970s and early 1980s."