INFECTED BLOOD IMPORTED FROM US
The infected blood and blood products, some of which were imported from the United States, were used for transfusions, which were not always clinically needed, and as treatments for bleeding disorders like haemophilia.
Haemophiliacs received Factor 8 concentrates, often imported from the United States or Austria, which carried a higher risk of causing hepatitis.
Some of the concentrates were infected with HIV in the 1980s, the inquiry said, but authorities failed to switch to safer alternatives and they decided in July 1983, a year after risks were apparent, not to suspend their importation.
Systemic failures resulted in between 80 and 100 people becoming infected with HIV by transfusion, it said, and about 26,800 were infected with Hepatitis C, often from receiving blood after childbirth or an operation.
Both groups were failed by doctors’ complacency about Hepatitis C and being slow to respond to the risks of AIDS, it said, compounded by an absence of meaningful apology or redress.
He said patients were exposed to risks despite it being well known that blood could cause severe infection, in the case of hepatitis since the end of World War Two.
Treatment practices that could have reduced the risks were not adopted, he said, noting blood was collected from prisoners, who had a higher prevalence of hepatitis, until 1984.
Some of the victims were further betrayed by being used in medical trials without their knowledge or consent, he said.
“It will be astonishing to anyone who reads this report that these events could have happened in the UK,” Langstaff said.
The British inquiry, which started in 2018, does not have the power to recommend prosecutions.
“SCALE OF WHAT HAPPENED IS HORRIFYING”
Langstaff said that “the scale of what happened is horrifying” and said people’s suffering had been compounded by repeated denials and false assurances that they had received good treatment.
When victims were told the truth, sometimes years later, this was in some cases done in “insensitive” and “inappropriate” ways.
Andy Evans, chair of the Tainted Blood campaign group, described the report as “momentous” and that he felt “validated and vindicated”.
“We have been gaslit for generations… Sometimes we felt like we were shouting into the wind during the last 40 years,” he told reporters.
