Blood Trail: UK Urged to Compensate Hemophiliacs for Infection

Yahoo News ^ | Tue Jun 18, 2002 | By Richard Woodman

[adanaC]

UK Urged to Compensate Hemophiliacs for Infection
Tue Jun 18, 2002; 1:29 PM ET

By Richard Woodman

LONDON (Reuters Health) - The British government was urged on Tuesday to make £52.6 million available annually for people with haemophilia who were infected with hepatitis C through contaminated blood products.

A report from the Haemophilia Society said that from 1969 to 1985, 95% of people with haemophilia were treated with blood products carrying a high risk of infection with hepatitis C. As a result, 2,829 haemophiliacs alive in the country today are infected with the virus.

Haemophilia is an inherited blood-clotting disorder. Those with the condition are at high risk for uncontrolled, potentially fatal bleeding following injury, and must have frequent infusions of blood products containing a clotting factor. Hepatitis C is a virus that attacks the liver, in some cases leading to severe liver damage and the need for a transplant.

The annual payments are needed because of loss of earnings; difficulties in obtaining travel, life and medical insurance, pensions and mortgages; and the progressive impact of hepatitis C on the health of haemophiliacs, according to the society.

"The infection of 95% of people with haemophilia with hepatitis C from their NHS blood products in the 1970s and 1980s was a medical tragedy perhaps without parallel in the history of the health service," said the society's chief executive, Karin Pappenheim.

"The model we publish today represents a serious contribution to the debate with--for the first time--a properly developed and costed plan. Ministers should consider this very carefully and look at the international precedents in Ireland, Canada and elsewhere," she added.

Pappenheim said recognition of these individuals' loss and suffering was long overdue. "The lives of thousands of people have been shattered by their infection with hepatitis C through contaminated blood products used by the National Health Service. By implementing this scheme, the government can at last provide some comfort for this small and unfortunate community."

• Budge's Links to the Tainted Arkansas Prison Blood Story
  • Page One
  • Page Two
  • Page Three
  • Page Four

• SEARCH: "Blood Trail" ... "Tainted Blood"

---

• Clinton Timeline
• Blood Trail Timeline
• Who, What, Where …

---

• Posts by adanaC:
  • BLOOD MONEY: What Canadian Donors Didn't Know (1976)
  • HEPATITIS AGENT: They've Named It For What It Isn't (1978)
  • Poisoned Blood Left Thousands to Suffer Unaided (early 1970's)
  • RCMP Will Not Lay Charges Against Government Bureaucrats Who Destroyed Crucial Evidence

• LIDDY DOLE'S RED CROSS RUNS AMOK (New American)
  • THE BLOOD BROKERS PART 1 -- HOW BLOOD, THE 'GIFT OF LIFE,' BECAME A BILLION-DOLLAR BUSINESS
  • THE LOOSE WAY THE FDA REGULATES BLOOD INDUSTRY
  • FEAR OF AIDS SPURS CHANGE
  • RED CROSS: FROM DISASTER RELIEF TO BLOOD
  • AMERICA: THE OPEC OF THE GLOBAL PLASMA
    Series Source: PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Published: September, 1989 Author: Gilbert M. Gaul Posted on 07/12/1999 22:14:30 PDT by Wallaby
  
  

• MUST READ: Is the Blood Trade Responsible for the AIDS Epidemic? (Compiled by Wallaby)
  

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Another Clinton atrocity!!! How can this man shave in the morning?

[T'wit]

Thanks for the post. Encouraging to see our friends across the water fighting the good fight. Let's hope these innocent victims get compensation at last, and whatever medical help it can buy.

[backhoe]

For whatever it's worth, I sent this story in a mass email yesterday to about 2 dozen letters to editors, and about a dozen and a half "opinionators"- writers and talk show hosts.

The information has gone out into cyberspace and perhaps a few more who are unfamiliar with the story will have their eyes opened a bit more.

It truly is horrendous.

[pies]

Thank you for doing that. My husband, who had hemophilia,
contracted Hepatitis B and C from contaminated blood products. He went on to develop liver cancer, then end stage liver failure. He received a liver transplant but developed lymphoma 9 mos later (most likely from the immunosuppressants to prevent rejection). He died 12 weeks later after the second round of chemo. The chemo caused the hepatitis viruses to run rampant and the transplanted liver to fail.

Oh how I wish all of the criminals involved whould have had to sit and watch this very fine 43 year old man suffer as I did.

[adanaC]

*HUGS* for you, pies. You're right, people don't realize how agonizing end stage liver disease can be.

I know of one courageous man who is in pallative care for hep C liver failure. He's volunteered to allow someone to film him each day with a home video camera until he dies. He'll be a fighter to his death he says.

[backhoe]

I just hope it does a little good... perhaps, like water wearing away a stone, one drop at a time, the drip, drip, drip of information will wear away the things shielding this awful subject from the public.

When I first got on the 'net in 1999, the "Blood Trail" story was one of the first things I searched for, and I was amazed and appalled at how much information was out there, and the iron curtain of silence that hid it. What little use I still had for the Mainstream Media vanished then.

I'm awfully sorry to learn of your husband's ordeal- my first wife had a couple of bouts with cancer before a stroke carried her away, and while I try not to think of those days much, I do recall them all too well.