LONDON (AP) – The final report of Britain’s Infected Blood Survey examines how tens of thousands of people were infected with HIV and hepatitis through transfusions of contaminated blood and blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. The announcement will be made on Monday, about six years after it began. .
The scandal is widely seen as the worst to hit Britain’s state-run National Health Service since its inception in 1948, with around 3,000 people thought to have died from HIV infection and hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver. There is.
The report is expected to criticize pharmaceutical companies, medical professionals, public servants, and politicians, but given the passage of time, many people have already died. It also paves the way for huge compensation claims that the UK government will be under pressure to pay quickly.
Had it not been for tireless activists, many of whom would have seen their loved ones die decades earlier, the scale of this scandal might have remained hidden forever.
“This scandal has covered my entire life,” Jason Evans said. In 1993, he was four years old when his father died at the age of 31, contracting HIV and hepatitis from infected plasma products.
“My father knew he was dying and he made a lot of home videos. I got them and played them over and over again growing up. That was the only option,” he added.
Mr Evans was instrumental in then Prime Minister Theresa May’s decision to launch an investigation in 2017. He said: “We could not let this investigation go unchecked.” His hope is that he and countless others will be able to do that on Monday.
Here’s a look at what the scandal is and what impact this report could have.
In the 1970s and 1980s, thousands of people who needed blood transfusions, such as after childbirth or surgery, were infected with hepatitis and the HIV virus, including an unknown type of hepatitis that later became known as hepatitis C. I was exposed to blood.
Patients with hemophilia, a disease that affects the blood’s ability to clot, are now exposed to what has been marketed as an innovative new plasma-based treatment.
In the UK, the NHS, which treats the majority of people, began using this new treatment in the early 1970s. It was called Factor VIII. It is more convenient than alternative treatments and has been called a miracle drug.
Demand soon outstripped domestic sources, so health officials began importing factor VIII from the United States, but most of the plasma donations came from prisoners and drug users who were paid to donate blood. This dramatically increased the risk of plasma contamination.
Factor VIII was made by mixing plasma from thousands of donations. In this pool, one infected donor would put the entire batch at risk.
The inquiry heard estimates that more than 30,000 people were infected from blood or blood products contaminated through blood transfusions or factor VIII.
By the mid-1970s, there was evidence that hemophiliacs treated with factor VIII were more likely to develop hepatitis. In 1953, the World Health Organization warned of the risk of hepatitis associated with large pools of plasma products and urged countries not to import plasma.
British government ordered to pay compensation after National Health Service killed patient with contaminated blood https://t.co/3qHU6eTHhW
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 31, 2022
AIDS, the greatest public health crisis since World War II, began in the early 1980s. Initially thought to be isolated to the gay community, it soon began to occur among hemophiliacs and people who had received blood transfusions.
The cause of AIDS (HIV) was not identified until 1983, but the British government had been warned the year before that the agent could be transmitted through blood products. The government claimed there was no conclusive evidence. Patients were not informed of the risks and continued treatment that exposed them to fatal risks.
The inquiry is expected to conclude that lessons from the early 1940s were being ignored.
Activists argue that it has been clear since the 1940s that heat kills hepatitis with another plasma product, albumin. They argue that authorities could have made factor VIII safe before it was marketed.
Evidence submitted to the inquiry suggested that the authorities’ main objections were financial. Unheated factor VIII was prescribed by the NHS until the end of 1985.
Activists hope the study’s core finding is that factor VIII concentrate should not have been allowed to be used unless it was heated.
In the late 1980s, victims and their families sought compensation for medical negligence. The government set up a charity in the early 1990s to pay her one-time support to those infected with HIV, but did not accept liability or responsibility, and victims received relief without suing the Ministry of Health. was pressured to sign a waiver requesting that money.
Importantly, this exemption also prevented victims from suing for hepatitis, even though at that stage they only knew about their HIV infection. Years after the petition was signed, the victims were told that they also had hepatitis, primarily hepatitis C.
There were no further class-action lawsuits until after his father’s death, when his mother “collapsed” and Mr. Evans, who was known as the “AIDS boy” at school, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health, alleging misconduct.
Combined with political and media pressure, Prime Minister Theresa May announced an independent inquiry. It was a “horrible tragedy that should never have happened,” she said.
The government has accepted the lawsuit seeking compensation, with most estimates suggesting the final claim will be around 10 billion pounds ($12.7 billion). In October 2022, the authority made an interim payment of £100,000 to each survivor and surviving partner.
The government is expected to announce different payments for each infectious disease, as well as setting out how and when families can apply for interim payments on behalf of the estates of the deceased.
