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For more than two decades, the Arkansas prison system profited from selling blood plasma from inmates infected with viral hepatitis and AIDS. Thousands of unwitting victims who received transfusions of a product called Factor 8 made from this blood died as a result. Follow along as filmmaker Kelly Duda uncovers the tragedy that many consider a crime. Through exclusive interviews and key documents as well as never-before-seen footage, he builds a formidable case that cries out to be heard. See in-depth interviews with a wide variety of players including: victims in Canada who contracted the diseases, state prison officials, former employees, high-ranking Arkansas politicians, and inmate donors, all of which paint a horrifying portrait of what happened. Why did the state of Arkansas and its prison system risk selling inmates’ blood for so long and how was it able to continue? Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal is an unsettling look at the complex issues surrounding prison corruption, blood safety and government oversight. This feature length documentary takes the viewer into the underbelly of the good ole boy South, and, like a Grisham novel, delivers disturbing subplots of continued danger, amazing coincidences and a possible conspiracy. At the heart of the documentary is one reporter’s dogged search for the truth. He discovers that his home state knew it was dealing a dangerous product, yet put profits over public safety while federal regulators looked the other way. Charges of cronyism and cover-up reach all the way to the administration of then-Gov. Bill Clinton. And, years before he would assume higher office, the question of “what did he know and when did he know it” comes into play. Add death threats, burglary, and a murder to the story and a suspected campaign of fear and intimidation surfaces lending explanation to how this story was kept quiet for so long. Even now, families are still grieving. People are still dying. Around the world major classaction lawsuits have been filed and criminal investigations are underway. While the rest of the globe looks to America for answers, the story remains largely untold and no one has ever been held accountable. Factor 8 is one citizen’s attempt to set that right.
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 “In the early days of AIDS, we at the CDC were surprised that the hemophiliac community was infected so rapidly. This shocking documentary tells why.”
Dr. Donald Francis/ former head of AIDS Laboratory
at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention |
Profile In late 1998, when Mark Kennedy of the Ottawa Citizen used Kelly Duda’s investigative work to break the Canada-Arkansas angle of the tainted blood story internationally, Duda had no idea how much hard work still lay ahead. It would take more than seven years for the whole story to be told. During this time, Kelly was followed, sued, burglarized, his tires slashed and his rear window smashed. Early coverage in the Canadian press, The Economist, Salon, Investor’s Business Daily and other media outlets all can be traced back to the muckraking efforts of this one man. Kelly has worked with CNN, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) and APTV (Associated Press Television) in their coverage of the use of tainted prison plasma in blood products. He was also part of the team for Fuji-TV that produced The Hepatitis C Epidemic: A 15-Year Government Cover-up. This program won a George Foster Peabody Award in 2003 and was watched by more than 12 million viewers in Japan. Recently, Kelly was a consultant in two major class-action lawsuits in Europe and Japan where plasma from Arkansas’ prison system appeared. He is actively assisting efforts in Canada to compensate all hepatitis C victims of tainted blood, and assisting the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in its investigation of the Arkansas prison plasma sales. He has also been in talks with the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI about a possible investigation in the United States. Kelly was involved in selecting questions put forth in a Senate inquiry on tainted blood in Australia. Evidence he uncovered linking Arkansas prison plasma to its use in the U.K. was presented to the Queen’s Council in Britain’s High Court and to the Ministry of Health. This information is also in the hands of the European Parliament in Brussels. Previously, Kelly was as a legal researcher for several major law fi rms in the San Francisco Bay area and worked on various independent fi lm projects. Most recently, he was the “go-to” contact in Arkansas for controversial filmmaker Robert Greenwald’s (Uncovered: The War on Iraq) new documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Kelly Duda is an Arkansas native. He received his bachelor’s degree in Film Studies & Broadcasting and Political Science from California State University, San José, and attended the university’s MBA program, with an emphasis in marketing. Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal is Kelly Duda’s first feature-length documentary film. It has taken more than five years to make.
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“At last, Kelly Duda’s stunning film, FACTOR 8, gives the story of the tainted blood
tragedy its due. Through interviews with inmates, prison health offi cials, and Canadians
who contracted diseases from Arkansas blood, Duda explores the greed and politics that
underscored this tragedy.” Mara Leveritt / Author of DEVIL’S KNOT: The True Story of the West Memphis Three
Contributing Editor to the ARKANSAS TIMES |
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“If young documentarians would choose subjects as important as that of Kelly Duda’s
FACTOR 8, we might be well on the way to making the world a better place.” Penelope Spheeris / Director of THE CROOKED E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron;
The Decline of Western Civilization
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“Kelly Duda’s film screams to be known about. The blatant abuse of power, the criminal
subjugation of prison inmates, and the complete absence of government oversight and
accountability make for a compelling, must-see story.” William Gazecki / Producer/Director of WACO: The Rules of Engagement
(Academy Award nominee)
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Director's Statement Prior to the making of Factor 8, I never considered myself an investigative journalist. In fact, I had never written a newspaper article before in my life. I was an aspiring filmmaker who had a story thrown into his lap. Actually, it wasn’t even a story at the time but a series of events that allegedly took place in my home state in the 1980s. It was a tale I didn’t want to tell, but the more I looked into it, the more I found. It didn’t take long before I realized that regardless of the cost and sacrifice, the story you’re about to see, which is a complicated one, had to be told. There where quite literally lives at stake. I felt a moral responsibility, a civic duty to do something. Factor 8 is one person’s search for answers. I warn you, much of what you’ll see will shock you. Factor 8 upsets the apple-cart, and may challenge your world view, and your views about leadership, government, and human nature. I know it did for me. Lastly, if you are at all impressed by this documentary, know that there are tens of thousands of stories out there right now waiting to be told which the major media have elected not to cover. When all “500 channels” are own by six business conglomerates, when newspapers don’t own themselves, when cinema verite, and style-over-substance “reality” programming rule the day, when sound bites are the extent of our news coverage, and when “spin” has become an accepted way for disseminating the truth, I ask you, where can the true spirit and expression of the independent voice be heard? Factor 8 is a story told in the “free press” tradition. And it is a testament to the fact that with a digital video camera, a cell phone, and a laptop, real stories by real people can still be told. Production Notes It may sound sensational, but I assure you it’s true. In the process of making Factor 8, I received strange phone calls, I was followed, my house was broken into, my tires slashed, and sensitive information -- including my personal notes -- mysteriously appeared on the Internet. I also had a gun pointed at the back of my head, there was a murder, and a key inmate informant was whisked out of state and put into isolation. When I went looking for the governor’s papers of Bill Clinton, to find state documents relevant to my investigation, I was told that 4,000 boxes had been hidden away in private storage and could not be found. When I went to the Arkansas State Health Department to request records regarding disease rates at the prison and anything about the plasma program, I was stonewalled. I actually had to sue the state agency just to get access to its files that by law are suppose to be a matter of public record. When I went to the Arkansas State Police Headquarters key documents had disappeared. When complete strangers showed up out of the blue asking me what I was doing and with whom did I work for, I had to ask myself, “what’s going on here?” One thing is for certain, if I had a dollar for every time someone (in the past 7 years I’ve been investigating this story) told me to “be careful!” I could have paid my rent several times over. Then in January 2004, I was sued, and shortly before Factor 8 was to screen in Park City, Utah, a federal Judge blocked my premiere. The case was eventually dismissed, but not without costing me two more years of my life and a lot of heartache. ... Not exactly what I expected to happen to me in my home state. Now victims around the world are asking me for information. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have talked to me about its investigation into the Arkansas shipments, and so has the U.S. Department of Justice about the possibility of its own investigation. I am working with activists in the U.K. pushing for a criminal investigation there, and with Congressmen in Japan and with the major media in Australia regarding their questions about shipments of tainted Arkansas prison plasma. Yet, despite global interest, few Americans know of this travesty.
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“Kelly Duda’s emotive film Factor 8 shocks as it highlights the immorality of the ‘blood for money’ U.S. prison plasma trade, and haemophiliacs in the U.K. are forced to confront the reality of the poison they dared to call ‘treatment.’ Factor 8 draws the viewer into a seedy world of prisoner exploitation and gross safety violations, a world where as one former inmate put it, ‘nobody cared.’” Carol Grayson / Spokesperson / Haemophilia Action United Kingdom
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