LAWSUIT ALLEGES COMPANIES SOLD BAD BLOOD (Alert!!-Is this connected to Clinton & Arkansas?)

AP ^ | 6/3/03 | AP

[Elkiejg]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Thousands of hemophiliacs filed a class-action lawsuit against Bayer Corp. and other companies, claiming they exposed patients to HIV and hepatitis C by selling products made with blood from sick, high-risk donors.

The lawsuits, filed in federal court, alleges the companies continued distributing the blood-clotting products in Asia and Latin America in 1984 and 1985, even after they stopped selling them in the United States because of the known risk of HIV and hepatitis transmission.

The suit was filed Monday on behalf of hemophiliacs who received the drug, said attorney Robert Nelson.

"This is a worldwide tragedy," Nelson said. "Thousands of hemophiliacs have unnecessarily died from AIDS and many thousands more are infected with HIV or hepatitis C."

In Germany, Bayer declined to comment Tuesday on the suit, saying it had not yet received the relevant documents. Baxter Healthcare Corp., also named in the lawsuit, did not immediately return calls seeking comment after business hours Monday.

The lawsuit was filed less than two weeks after Bayer responded to an investigation by The New York Times accusing the company of selling old stock of the medicine abroad, while marketing a newer, safer product in the United States.

While the company said it acted responsibly and in line with the best medical knowledge at the time, Bayer and three other companies that made the concentrate settled 15 years of U.S. lawsuits from people who took the drug, paying about $600 million, the newspaper said.

The medicine, called Factor VIII concentrate, can stop or prevent potentially fatal bleeding in people with hemophilia.

Early in the AIDS epidemic, the medicine was commonly made using mingled plasma from 10,000 or more donors. Because there was not yet a screening test for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, thousands of hemophiliacs were infected.

But the lawsuit alleges Bayer and the others refused to take precautions that could have made the product safer.

As of 1992, the contaminated blood products had infected at least 5,000 hemophiliacs in Europe with HIV. More than 2,000 had already developed AIDS and 1,250 had died from the disease, the lawsuit said.

By the mid-1990s in Japan, hemophiliacs accounted for the majority of the country's 4,000 reported cases of HIV infection and virtually all infections of Japan's hemophiliacs have been linked to contaminated blood products imported from the United States, the lawsuit said.

In Latin America, at least 700 HIV cases are linked to use of contaminated blood products by hemophiliacs, the lawsuit said.

[Elkiejg]

Attention - Clinton experts. Is this connected to the Arkansas prison bad blood sales while Clinton was Gov?

[firewalk]

Bttt

[CheneyChick]

If my memory serves me correctly, the tainted Arkansas blood from the prisons was sold into Canada and much evidence was clearly documented -- they knew they couldn't sell it to the U.S., so they exported it. Sick...... Don't remember anything about Bayer being involved.

[kayak]

A-G ~~~ does it sound to you like there might be a connection?

[tiamat]

Don't know but if it is, it ought to be shouted from tthe roof-tops.

Anybody have the origionals on that? I've lost mine....

Tia

[B Knotts]

I'd ping Askel5, but she was purged.

[tiamat]

CheneyChick wrote:

If my memory serves me correctly, the tainted Arkansas blood from the prisons was sold into Canada and much evidence was clearly documented -- they knew they couldn't sell it to the U.S., so they exported it.

*****************************************

Bunch of Japanese got it too.

Tia

[CheneyChick]

Newsmax has a bunch of stuff on it:

http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/1/27/114853

[tiamat]

Thank you!

[CheneyChick]

Hmmm. A lot of those links are dead, but this one still works:

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/12/cov_23news.html

[mitchbert]

Your memory does serve correctly. Interestingly, the building that held the records that were to be examined to trace the responsiility for selling the blood burned down mysteriously with all the evidence inside.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Is that like an enema?

[Conservative til I die]

Hopefully Bayer will lose their collective shirt in this suit. I find it strange that they continued to sell the blood products to the little brown and yellow people after they stopped selling it to the tall white blonde people...NOT.

[Carry_Okie]

Poing

[ottograham]

This blood business is old news. The plaintiffs in this class action were parties to a 1996-97 class action and more than 6000 of them were paid $100,000 a person (more than $600 million in total). Others maintained private lawsuits (more than 400 of them) and all have now been resolved. This has nothing to do with Clinton and Arkansas. This California lawyer is a Johnny come lately (likely a Dem) who is looking to pick up a fee to go away.

[Cicero]

This could certainly lead toward clinton and the Arkansas prison blood scandal, but it's not clear whether the plaintiffs have that intent. There's one sentence I find interesting:

"As of 1992, the contaminated blood products had infected at least 5,000 hemophiliacs in Europe with HIV."

As we all know, 1992 was a politically significant date. There's no explanation why the article chooses that particular date for its statistics.

[CheneyChick]

Oh well, whether it has something to do with Clinton or not, it is good to keep the word out there about what happened in Arkansas.....

We will never forget.

[KC Burke]

its a shame when a proven resource isn't on hand to assist

[Calpernia]

Wanted to reference this thread here too:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/889385/posts

[Calpernia]

There is a link to the Clinton Blood story posted within the thread I added above.