The British government was willing to risk infecting NHS patients to obtain “cheap” blood products, according to documents that incriminate states and companies in one of the worst scandals in British history.
The public inquiry into the deaths of an estimated 2,900 people infected with diseases such as HIV and hepatitis was carried out in May, 40 years after the NHS began prescribing blood and blood products to people including drug users, prisoners and sex workers. The final report is scheduled to be published in . From the United States.
With internal minutes revealed among thousands of documents disclosed in the investigation, activists say they have the final convincing evidence of commercial greed and state neglect that has destroyed thousands of lives. claims to provide.
In November 1976, the Austrian company Immuno AG, which was a major supplier to the Department of Health, agreed to provide blood products from people who paid in the United States, rather than from donors with no financial incentive. The company was seeking a change to its license. Europe.
Minutes from the company’s medical conference said a concentrate made from U.S. plasma, known as Cryobulin 2, was “demonstrated” to have a “significantly higher risk of hepatitis” than those made in Austria or Germany.
The company had concluded that cheaper US options were “preferred” in the UK. The meeting notes said: “Kryoblin 2 will be significantly cheaper than Kryoblin 1 as the UK market accepts that the lower-priced product carries a higher risk of hepatitis.” In the long term, Kryoblin 1 will disappear from the UK market. ”
Already a year ago, Granada’s “World in Action” documentary revealed that drug users and people living on the streets in the United States are paid to donate blood, and that blood donors are not consistently truthful about their lifestyles and health status. It was reported that.
The government has issued a public apology for the scandal in recent years, but Rishi Sunak has been accused of dragging his feet over compensation. Interim compensation of £100,000 has been paid to victims and their families in around 4,500 cases, but two-thirds of families remain without compensation.
Last year, the Prime Minister ignored calls from the inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff to develop a final compensation framework by the end of 2023 and extend payments to parents and children of infected people. did.
Among the victims of the contaminated blood scandal were 1,250 hemophiliacs infected with HIV and 2,400 to 5,000 people infected with hepatitis C and suffering from such bleeding disorders.
Of these, a total of 1,170 people died due to the infection, including several children. They were infected through a blood product known as factor VIII. Kryoblin was one of her brands.
One of those who died after contracting Kryoblin 2 was Jonathan Evans, a carpenter from Coventry who died in 1993 at the age of 31. His son Jason, who was four years old when he lost his father, has been campaigning for justice for 10 years.
Jason, 34, said: “The importance of this document is that pharmaceutical companies are willing to sell products that they know cause hepatitis, and states are willing to buy those products because they’re cheaper.” It clearly shows that we were prepared.” than something less risky.
“What I hope with the investigation is that it will finally be on the official record that what happened was completely preventable and caused by unethical practices. For a long time, the government has maintained that this was an inevitable accident that no one could have foreseen. Most importantly, they have been doing nothing wrong for decades. One of the lines we’ve been using is that no one was knowingly given infected blood products, and clearly documents like this completely blow that statement away.”
Janine Jones, 59, from Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 by her brother Mark Paton, who was a pupil at Treloar College, a boarding school in Hampshire that specializes in educating people with haemophilia. He said he died at the age of 41 after contracting hepatitis. He was relieved that his parents died before new evidence emerged.
She said: “Even though most of us had some sort of inclination that this kind of thing was happening, it’s pretty shocking to actually see it in black and white. And to be honest, it’s pretty shocking to see it in black and white. I’m glad I didn’t live to witness that moment.
“My parents didn’t cope well with everything that happened to Mark. My mother always blamed herself for giving her son hemophilia because she was a carrier in the first place. It was his father who convinced his mother to let him go to Treloar’s house for a better education.And to find out that it actually happened when he was there. I mean, he went there when he was 11 years old. So when you think about it, the fact that they were doing that to kids.”
The public inquiry was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017, shortly after hundreds of victims of the scandal filed a class action lawsuit in the High Court, but legal action was temporarily suspended while the inquiry led by Langstaff was completed. Suspended.
Langstaff said in an interim report last April that it was clear that “fraud occurred at an individual, collective and organizational level”.
He highlighted evidence from Prime Minister and former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt that the disaster was a “failure of the British state”.
Evidence has been uncovered during an investigation into missing government documents. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a policy of not informing victims that they had been infected.
In France, senior officials were jailed over similar scandals in the 1990s, but no charges have ever been brought in Britain.
Former health secretary Andy Burnham told the House of Commons in 2017 that he believed there was an “industrial scale criminal cover-up”.
Des Collins, a lawyer who represents 1,500 victims and their families, said: “In my view, the government of the time in the 1980s and early 90s recognized what was happening in France and decided to take action in this country. So I guess they thought something like this would never happen, so they withdrew it.” Climb the drawbridge to say “There’s nothing to see here.” I think they were worried about criminal prosecution. That led to 40 years of denial. ”
Tony Farrugia, 53, who lost his father Barry and two uncles to infections caused by infected blood products, said he had yet to receive any compensation from the government.
Farrugia, who spent her childhood in a shelter due to the disaster, said: “Entire families have been destroyed. What the government is doing by making us wait to acknowledge its role in what happened is truly cruel.”
A government spokesperson said: “This is a terrible tragedy and our thoughts are with everyone affected. We are clear that justice must be served for the victims. We have already accepted the moral case for compensation.
“This covers a very complex set of issues and it is right that we take full account of the needs of local communities and the wider impact this scandal has on their lives. We will provide an update to Congress on next steps through an oral statement within 25 days of publication.”
Immuno AG was acquired by US company Baxter International in 1996 for $715 million, which spun off its blood products business and sold it to Shire in 2015. That company was acquired by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company in 2019.
A Takeda spokesperson said: We are fully aware of the importance of the investigation and have cooperated with the investigation with the aim of assisting the investigation in any way possible by providing historical information about the companies involved. We will continue to do our best in the investigation.
“Above all else, Takeda is committed to the safety and quality of our medicines. We have strict standards and procedures in place, particularly for plasma-derived therapies, which include rigorous donor selection, extensive plasma testing and pathogen reduction, all fully compliant with international regulations and industry standards.
“Given that work on the independent investigation to finalize the report is still ongoing, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time and we welcome the full report, which is expected to be published next month. ”
