Posted on 10/31/2005 4:31:37 AM PST by Plasmaman
FORMER US President Bill Clinton may be forced to appear in court over a medical scandal which claimed the lives of innocent Scots.
Many haemophiliacs were infected with hepatitis C after tainted blood from American prisoners was imported into the UK.
Glasgow firm Thomsons are representing the families of Scots sufferers who died after contracting the disease.
They allege inmates in an Arkansas jail were paid to donate blood despite the authorities knowing they had AIDS and hepatitis.
They are threatening to call the ex-president, who was state governor at the time, to the witness stand.
The infected bloodwasused to make clotting agents for haemophiliacs who require regular blood transfusions Frank Maguire, of Thomsons, said "These allegations are extremely serious and I am now more sure than ever that there should be a full public inquiry into why so many Scots contracted hepatitis C from infected blood products.
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"The relatives of my clients who have died want an inquiry to know how their loved ones came to be infected with such a deadly disease, to expose the full facts surrounding their death and bring to light any negligent or discreditable conduct.
"An inquiry would also help to reassure the public that this sort of thing could not happen again.
"If former President Clinton has some information about how this happened in a jail in Arkansas while he was state governor then I'd hope he'd want to give evidence to an inquiry."
The law firm has already taken court action against the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, and Health Minister Andy Kerr.
They are calling for a review of their decision not to hold a judicial inquiry into the spate of deaths
You know what...this comes out at a good time. Hillary is screwed for '08.
Didn't the OKC Murrah Building have ltos of WACO Evidence lost forever?
QUESTION: Is he being called to testify as a witness or being called as a defendant? Is it a civil or criminal case? Are you guilty until proven innocent in Scotland? Anyone know? Interesting!
Forgot all about this - Go get 'em!
"Clinton knew of the scheme and likely benefited from it financially."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Everything the Clinton's have ever done they've benefited financially whether it's legal,morally ethical or not.
The Scots have made a documentary: http://www.sundayherald.com/52592
Scandal of infected US blood revealed in film exposé
By Liam McDougall, Home Affairs Editor
A MAJOR new documentary that uncovers fresh evidence about how thousands of Scots contracted Aids and hepatitis through infected blood is to be given its world premiere at a prestigious US film festival.
The film, Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal, made by the US film-maker Kelly Duda, will reveal new details about how inmates at a US jail were paid to donate blood despite the authorities knowing they had Aids and hepatitis.
It shows how the US state of Arkansas, under former president and then-governor Bill Clinton, allowed contaminated blood from Aids and hepatitis-infected prisoners to be exported around the world during the 1980s and 1990s to be used in the manufacture of clotting agents for haemophiliacs.
The documentary also reveals for the first time how senior figures in the prison system doctored prisoners’ medical records to make it look like they were not carrying the deadly diseases. Even after it was known there was a problem, the film reveals, blood products were allowed to be supplied to Europe, including to the UK, where thousands of patients were infected with HIV and the potentially fatal liver virus, hepatitis.
Last night, the revelations caused outrage among haemophiliacs who contracted Aids and other diseases through the blood products. They branded the findings “unbelievable” and “shocking”, and demanded that the government launch a judicial inquiry into the so-called “tainted blood scandal”.
Many haemophiliacs believe that the UK government colluded with US authorities and giant pharma ceutical companies in the medical disaster. Investigations by the Sunday Herald have already revealed that the UK’s Department of Health knew in 1981 that haemophiliacs were at risk of hepatitis infection from imported blood products, but continued to use them.
Andy Gunn, a Scottish haemophiliac who contracted Aids and hepatitis after being given the clotting agent Factor 8 from a US source in the 1980s, said: “This film shows again that we need a full inquiry into why this was allowed to happen.”
Gunn, 30, who is involved in an international legal case against the US pharmaceutical firms, said he was most at risk of contracting the diseases because he had to use clotting agent more often since he has severe haemophilia.
Duda’s film, which is to be shown at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles on November 8, is the result of almost a decade of research into prison blood policy.
In the film, Bill Douglas, a former prisoner and hepatitis sufferer, described the regime in Cummins Penitentiary in Arkansas, where he regularly donated plasma.
He said: “They didn’t care if you had to crawl to get there so long as you were able to give blood. You were never checked. It was like a cattle chute. That’s the way it was done.”
Dr Edwin Barron, a medical administrator at the facility, who was so disgusted at the facilities that he resigned after around a year, said: “They did little or no screening of anybody. It was obvious to me ... that this was a time bomb that had been planted here.”
He said that despite raising concerns he witnessed needles being shared by the prisoners. In 1983, around the time that haemophiliacs were becoming infected with HIV in the UK, the prison refused to recall the products it had exported that were found to be suspect.
There are also allegations that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, may have been aware of the concerns about the blood products. Randal Morgan, who was deputy director of the department of corrections from 1981 to 1996, said: “ It would be ludicrous that Bill Clinton did not know that the plasma programme was experiencing problems.”
The risk of infection was magnified because the US used pooled blood, meaning that the blood of groups of people were used to manu facture single Factor 8 products. One contaminated unit of blood would have been enough to infect thousands of patients.
In the UK, around 5000 Britons contracted hepatitis A, B, C and G in the 1980s and 1990s. Thousands more contracted HIV, many of whom are now dead.
The fresh revelations come as thousands of haemophiliacs worldwide are launching a class action in the US against five drug companies, Alpha Thera peutic, Armour, Aventis, Baxter and Bayer.
They add weight to calls for an inquiry into the scandal, so far refused by the UK government.
Gunn added: “It’s a murderous cover-up. They have effectively murdered thousands of haemophiliacs and got away with it.
“What’s a few thousand haemophiliacs? That’s their view.”
Duda said: “I’ve seen documents that officials in the UK were aware of the dangers. I think it’s unconscionable for there not to be a full public and criminal investigation into this.
The Department of Health has denied that there is need for an inquiry because it does not accept that “wrongful practices” were used.
30 October 2005
Plasmaman, can you give the source of the 75,000 infected worldwide estimate? I just want to be able to back up that part of the story when I tell family and friends. As another poster said, God Bless the Scots!
Tom Mull, legal counsel in Louisiana gave that estimate in the CBC documentary 'Bad Blood' back in 1999. It's a fair accounting based on the number of hemophiliacs infected with AIDS/Hep C worldwide.
Prison plasma operations in the south (Angola, Alabama, Cummins and Arizona State prisons) pooled their plasma to sell to the blood broker in Montreal.
Thousands of infected prison plasma units were sent around the world for hemophiliacs to transfuse.
The prison plasma infections would have been the bulk of those 75,000 poisoned hemophiliacs.
A bump and a drip!
How would they ever prove he knew the blood was tainted? Is there any evidence, circumstantial or direct, that he know?
Thanks for the info, Plasmaman. Now I'll go to the links and read up on the history of this (please someone supply me the proper word).
ping, bloodgate returns
The FDA shut the program down 3 times while Clinton was governor. There was an international recall of the tainted prison plasma. Surely, the Governor would have had to be notified of the issue. Thats why he had to put Richard Mays into investigate and clean up problems at the prison.
Evidence collected by the State Police point towards the governor's knowledge of the goings on at the prison. Leonard Dunn was quoted by the police as stating "I'm Clintons right hand man". Clinton was seen by many cavorting at prison parties (heaven knows with who or what). the list goes on.
Unfortunately, Clinton refused to release over 400 boxes of evidence that would support his story that he knew nothing.
bump and a drip!
AG - do you achive this story too?
But, will the Bum give the info; or will he cry a tear and say nothing if they can get him that far.
Great people - "Smart Warriors" - and a lot of them are great Christians...
transfusion anyone?
You mean there is actually a difference?
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