Independent inquiry has condemned "procrastination" that led to thousands of patients being infected with HIV and Hepatitis C from contaminated blood.

Blood inquiry condemns 'procrastination' which led to thousands of patients being infected with HIV and Hepatitis C
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The inquiry, led by Labour Peer Lord Archer of Sandwell, said the infection of so many people was a "horrific human tragedy."

The authors of the report said they were "dismayed" at the time taken by the Government and scientific agencies to respond to the dangers of Hepatitis C and HIV infections.

The report noted there was "lethargic" progress towards national self-sufficiency in blood products in England and Wales, where it took 13 years compared to just five years in Ireland.

As a result the NHS bought blood from US suppliers who used what became known as "skid row" donors, such as prison inmates, who were more likely to have HIV and Hepatitis C.

The report said: "It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that commercial interests took precedence over public health concerns."

It added: "Whether the lack of urgency over much of this period arose from over-hesitant scientific advice or from a sluggish response by Government is now difficult to assess."

Nearly 2,000 haemophiliacs have died as a result of exposure to the contaminated blood in what leading medical expert Lord Winston called "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS"."

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"."

More about the HIV and hepatitis C blood contamination scandal. - You can't trust Downing St on matters of health and gross NHS negligence.

Number 10 hiding blood scandal facts - The Observer

Extract:

"An independent public inquiry into how thousands of haemophiliacs contracted HIV or hepatitis C from contaminated blood discovered last night that Downing Street is withholding crucial information about how hundreds of relevant documents were shredded.

More than 1,700 patients died and many more are now terminally ill as a result of one of the biggest medical disasters of recent times, when haemophiliacs were given infected blood clotting products during the late Seventies and early Eighties. The products came from American prisoners who were allowed to sell their blood even though there were fears about the risks of contamination.

But it has since emerged that many of the files detailing the scandal were shredded by civil servants in the Nineties. This week, the second hearing of the contaminated blood inquiry, chaired by the former Solicitor-General, Lord Archer of Sandwell, will ask why the results of an internal inquiry into the destruction of crucial files are being withheld.

Jenny Willott, Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, has discovered that Downing Street is holding back the report, carried out by the Department of Health in 2000, when Alan Milburn was Health Secretary. Some of the destroyed documents detailed meetings between the blood transfusion service, health boards, government officials and consultants during the Seventies and Eighties. The records also contained information on when precisely the government became aware of the risks from imported blood and what measures were taken to warn patients.

The Haemophilia Society said last night that Downing Street's decision was 'incomprehensible, given the public interest'. In 1989, the society brought legal action on behalf of thousands of patients who had become infected with HIV after being given the clotting product Factor 8. Haemophilia is a rare hereditary condition in which the blood does not clot properly. British doctors used the American products despite some senior scientists knowing that there was a risk. Compensation was then agreed with the Tory government in 1990 and thousands of patients received one-off payments of between £21,000 and £80,000.

However, it then transpired that hundreds of documents relating to the case were shredded, allegedly by accident, by junior civil servants. It is now known that there were two separate instances of documents being destroyed, or mislaid, at some point between 1990 and 1998. Some copies of documents had been made by a solicitor's firm, and these were returned to the government, but others are thought to have been lost forever. The total number of destroyed documents is not known. In 2000, the Department of Health held the audit but it was never published."

Read even more about the COLOSSAL negligence of the Department of Health and the Chief Medical Officer in the early 90s, (actually Kenneth Calman) here http://aboutsalt.blogspot.com/search/label/Kenneth%20Calman and here http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html

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."

Susan Watts' Newsnight report about blood safety warnings ignored by health professionals administering blood products to haemophiliacs in the 70s/80s

I watched BBC2's Newsnight report, compellingly presented by Susan Watts last night. She had interviewed some of the people involved in this tragedy. If the effect on other viewers was similar to the effect on me, then there will be many people feeling outraged at the appalling risks that health professionals knowingly and avoidably took with the lives and health of haemophilia sufferers and with the happiness and wellbeing of their families. This is a national scandal of monumental proportions, but has been subjected to years of the standard lies/cover-up/evasion that routinely feature in cases of medical negligence and bureaucratic/governmental dereliction of duty. - If the perpetrators and others associated with these horrifying events are still alive, I hope that the inquiry will be able to nail them and that, late in the day as it is, they will suffer condign punishment. And I hope that the government will give generously from taxpayers' money to the innocent victims and the family members who are still alive.

I URGE YOU TO READ THE REPORT. - Here is an extract from it:

"Evidence UK scientists ignored warnings that could have prevented people with haemophilia being given contamined blood has been seen by the BBC.

The Newsnight programme has seen documents suggesting experts were aware of the threat at an early stage, but transfusions were not stopped.

In the 1970s and 1980s, 4,500 UK haemophilia patients were exposed to lethal viruses in blood products.

Two thousand have since died of either Hepatitis C or HIV.

Successive governments have resisted attempts to hold a full inquiry. As a result campaigners have organised a private inquiry which will hold its first hearing on Wednesday. It is generally accepted that many people with haemophilia became infected from supplies of the clotting agent Factor 8 from abroad. "

As I write, there is also a video recording of the programme on the BBC website.

Independent inquiry into the deaths of nearly 2,000 haemophilia patients after exposure to contaminated blood and blood products

Inquiry opens into blood contamination deaths - Guardian

Extracts:

"An independent inquiry began today into the deaths of nearly 2,000 haemophilia patients exposed to HIV and/or hepatitis C through contaminated blood and blood products, described as the worst treatment catastrophe in NHS history."

"The campaign on the patients' behalf has been led by Labour peer Lord Alf Morris, who was Britain's first minister for disabled people and is the president of the all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia.

He said that, of the 4,670 haemophiliac patients exposed to hepatitis C, 1,243 were also exposed to HIV and despite improvements in treatment for both viruses, only 2,552 patients with hepatitis C and just 361 with HIV are still alive."