Posted on 05/30/2005 6:32:11 PM PDT by Clive
HAMILTON (CP) - Tens of thousands of Canadians infected with AIDS or hepatitis C got an apology from the Canadian Red Cross on Monday after the charity pleaded guilty to distributing tainted blood in exchange for dropped criminal charges.
"The Canadian Red Cross Society is deeply sorry for the injury and death caused to those who were infected . . . and for the suffering caused to families and loved ones of those who were harmed," Dr. Pierre Duplessis, the organization's secretary general, told the Ontario Superior Court in a video-taped apology as tearful victims looked on.
"We accept responsibility through our plea for having distributed harmful products to those that rely on us for their health."
The charity accepted responsibility for the deadly tainted-blood scandal of the 1980s and early 1990s and said it would pay a $5,000 fine and dedicate $1.5 million to a scholarship fund and research project aimed at reducing medical errors.
In exchange for a guilty plea under the federal Food and Drugs Act, the Crown withdrew charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and common nuisance.
At a news conference, Duplessis apologized again to victims, saying "blood they had trusted to give life ended up taking it away."
An emotional Mike McCarthy, spokesman for the Canadian Hemophilia Society and tireless activist for victims, welcomed the admission of wrongdoing but with little satisfaction.
"How can anyone be satisfied? Thousands of people lost their lives. Hundreds and hundreds of people are living with these fatal viruses today," McCarthy said.
"There's no great outcome here for anybody that's gone through the tainted-blood scandal."
John Plater, who contracted HIV and hemophilia from the bad blood, called the conviction a historic occasion.
"This will go down in history as the first day we got finally to the reality that there was breaking of law that led to this," said John Plater, who is also Ontario president of the Canadian Hemophilia Society.
"We (had) thought a terrible mistake had caused the worst public health disaster in this country's history and what we've heard today is: No, in fact, people broke the law."
In an agreed statement of facts, prosecutor John Ayre told the court the organization had been too slow in implementing screening for HIV and hepatitis C in blood in the 1980s.
Ayre said convicting the non-profit organization of a criminal offence and levying a large fine would cripple its ability to carry on the humanitarian relief work for which it is renowned.
"The Red Cross has now said it is sorry and responsible for its actions," Ayre told the court.
"The apology . . . is as complete as one could contemplate."
Justice James Kent accepted the plea but asked to hear from victims before issuing a sentence on June 30.
Victims will have that opportunity through a website. (www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/vw/blood)
The blood scandal is considered one of the worst public health disasters in Canadian history.
More than 1,000 Canadians became infected with blood-borne HIV and up to 20,000 others contracted hepatitis C after receiving tainted-blood products.
About 3,000 people had died by 1997 and the death toll has grown, although it's not clear by how many.
As part of the settlement, the Red Cross will dedicate $750,000 to a post-secondary education fund for victims and their families.
It will also give the University of Ottawa another $750,000 to set up a national research initiative aimed at preventing errors in the health-care sector.
Duplessis said none of the money will come from charitable donations.
Instead, the organization, which has already paid victims $70 million, will use its own internal funds from the sale of its blood-related assets.
The organization ended its involvement in blood distribution in 1998 following a damning public inquiry and transferred those services to the Canadian Blood Services and Hema Quebec.
The agency then used proceeds from the transfer to provide $70 million in compensation to those infected, restructured under bankruptcy protection and brought in new leadership.
Michael Edelson, lawyer for the Red Cross, said it would be unfair for anyone to focus on the proposed $5,000 fine.
"People may have a perception that it's a slap on the wrist but don't forget there's a $1.5-million initiative here which will last for many years to come (and a) previous payment of $70 million," said Edelson.
The charges were laid in November 2002 after a complex five-year investigation by the RCMP.
Several individuals, including Dr. Roger Perrault, a former director at the Red Cross, still face criminal charges.
Perrault's lawyer denied any criminal activity by his client but has asked the courts to stay the charges because Perrault is in poor health.
Plater said he could live with the Red Cross plea bargain, but added that victims would be less forgiving if deals are struck in cases yet to come before the courts.
"We'll be outraged if we see the same sort of plea-bargaining going on there," Plater said.
Victims also say they are still fighting for proper compensation.
Ottawa and the provinces announced a $1.2-billion package in 1998, but it offered benefits only to victims infected from 1986 to 1990.
Allan Rock, then health minister, said pre-1986 victims were excluded because nothing could have been done before then to prevent spread of the disease.
Several provinces including Ontario and Quebec have since extended compensation to those victims.
How stupid can you get??? Taking blood from a population highly likely to practice the types of behavior of all of the exclusionary questions the Red Cross has on their Q&A sheets! We all know how truthful they would be, too!
See post #28. The error was not strictly speaking that of the Red Cross, but the company they sourced the factor 8 from, who in turn got it from a another company who did actually know where it was coming from. Of course, certainly the company producing the factor 8 should have ascertained what the source was.
I have condemned, and do condemn the United States as a whole for Clinton's presidency. We screwed that one up royally. Some are more to blame than others, of course, but collectively we got that one terribly wrong for sure.
However, Clinton's governorship is the responsibility of the people of Arkansas alone. May they ever feel shame for that.
Now, I am no expert on Canada. I pay very little attention to that country. But the response to this situation, as described in the article, is not just a complete and utter disgrace, but it is a disgrace with decidedly Canadian characteristics. Your country is almost entirely run by a single party. They are laughably corrupt and incompetant. The scandals multiply. Yet there is absolutely nothing, NOTHING, that anyone can do about it.
And for all this, your predominant political culture is one of complete disengagement from issues of domestic governance, and smug, sneering condescension toward your neighbor, security benefactor, main trading partner, and best friend, the United States.
Taken as a whole, Canadians are nearly as supercillious as the French, only with really crappy cheese.
For these reasons I say Canada really, really sucks.
Actually, I meant that for anyone obtaining blood from a prison population. It should never have been done. Ever.
Ping.
Thanks for the ping, NW_Arizona_Granny. Many people with hemophilia, in this country, also contact HIV from the blood supply. Also, I believe many who had surgery and required a blood transfusion, got the disease too. So sad.
What were they thinking when they used the prisons as a source for blood? Guess they were NOT thinking.
My son is a Hep C infected Hemopheliac. Thank you Bill Clinton for your end run around the law to sell Arkansas Prisoners blood to Canada. The Canadian Red Cross are a bunch of cowards in my opinion. My son was excluded from the Red Cross compensation because he joined the Hemopheliac class action suit. He received the paltry sum of about $35,000.00!! I can only thank God that his liver function tests are perfect each year. And he doesn't drink. He's thirty five this year and was likely infected in the early 80's. I'm sorry but I don't have much compassion for these "tearful" Red Cross employees. They were warned and for monetary reasons, kept distributing the blood.
These cowards had to have a deal of no prosecution before they could even say sorry. I personally reject their apology outright. Their A$$es should all be in jail. So should Bill Clinton's. Amazing how much damage Clinton has done even around the world huh?
I seemed to miss the part that said from where and whom the blood came from.
The mortality rate is highest amongst the Factor 8 Hemopheliacs. My son, thankfully is a Factor 9 but he is positive for Hep C anyway. The Factor 8's - up to 80% of them were co-infected with both HIV & Hep C!! A total travesty for sure.
Bill Clinton will face this before Jesus.
Absolutely!! If he doesn't get right with God he'll face the throne as a murderer.
Re: Factor 8 explanation.
Thank you both. That makes much more sense. I stand corrected.
This story simply does not make sense.
FIRST: - It claims "Tens of thousands of Canadians were infected with AIDS" (by infected blood).
The problem with this statement is that THE TOTAL number of people with a '"positive 'AIDS' diagonisis"
between 1983 and 1994 in Canada was only 12,216.
Even if only ONE 'ten(s) of thousand' had been so infected it would account for almost ALL of the total 'AIDS' cases in Canada.
TWO. Blood transmission is very rare (if you believe the HIV hypothesis in the first place). Dr. Willner who injected 'HIV' seven times suffered no ill effects and tens of thousands of needle stick accidents have resulted in almost no 'AIDS' infections.
It is strange how the media buys into these exaggerated scare stories without even doing a quick check to see if the figures add up.
HERE IS ANOTHER FACT ABOUT CANADA
Cumulative 'AIDS' figures in Canada
What is interesting is that there have only been 65 teenage cases since 1983 in Canada. Also the 20 to 25 age group is very low too.
This is similar to the U.S. and does not fit an std.
Like America, people over 60 have as much 'AIDS'
(611 cases) as both teenagers AND 20-24 years olds combined (65 teen cases and 573 cases in the 20-24 group).
Seems once again Grannies Gone Wild!
Check the facts for yourself at: -
http://www.avert.org/canstatr.htm
BLOOD TRANSMISSION REMAINS UNPROVEN
To date, there is no evidence of the existence in human plasma of particles with the morphological characteristics attributed to HIV even though the plasma of at least some "HIV infected" individuals is claimed to contain such particles.
Thus Levy, whose team reported most often on the relationship between HIV and factor VIII wrote in 1988: "Human Immunodeficiency virus in plasma or serum has been found in about 30% of specimens from seropositive persons, generally at a concentration of less than 10 IP/mL12" [IP=3Dinfectious particles] (Levy, 1988). Reference 12 cited by Levy is a paper which he published in collaboration with Barbara Michaelis but this paper does not contain a description of the method used to show that (a) HIV seropositive (non-haemophiliac) plasma was infected with "HIV particles"; (b) HIV was "present in low titers"; (c ) the particles were "infectious". Commenting on his and his colleagues' findings Levy wrote: "These studies demonstrate further that not all seropositive individuals have virus recoverable from their PMCs and that isolation from serum is not a common event" [PMCs=peripheral blood mononuclear cells] (Michaelis & Levy, 1987). "Thus, cell-free virus in body fluids is unlikely to be a meaningful source of HIV transmission". (Levy, 1988).
At least one other eminent HIV/AIDS researcher is also of the opinion that HIV cannot be transmitted through "...products prepared from blood, such as albumin, plasma, protein fractions, or hepatitis B vaccine" (Blattner, 1989). If HIV cannot be transmitted through "cell-free" body fluids (plasma) because it is not found in the plasma of 70% of seropositive individuals and in the remaining 30% is "generally at a concentration of less than 10 IP/mL", then it will be even less probable that factor VIII prepared from plasma can be a "meaningful source of HIV transmission" since, even if HIV were present in a plasma collection, it would be diluted many times over during the process of factor VIII manufacture.
This is because factor VIII is made by pooling plasma obtained from 2000 to 30,000 individuals amongst whom at most, there will be only a few HIV seropositives. Since factor VIII prepared from large batches of pooled plasma is ultimately shared amongst many haemophiliacs, the load of HIV for each haemophiliac will be substantially lower than 10 IP/ml.
Since 1989, detection of a 24,000 molecular weight protein (p24) in cell cultures, (T cells from persons presumed to be infected), or co-cultures, (of T cells from persons presumed to be infected, with T cells from normal individuals), has been used to quantify HIV in cells, "cellular viremia" (Masquelier et al., 1992). Detection of p24 in cultures of T cells from normal individuals with plasma from those presumed to be infected has been used to quantify HIV in plasma, "plasma viremia" (Coombs et al., 1989; Ho et al., 1989; Clark et al., 1991).
There are many reasons why p24 cannot be used to quantitate or even detect the presence of "HIV infectious particles".
These include:
(a) there is ample evidence that the p24 protein is not HIV specific (Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al., 1993a and see below);
(b) there is no relationship between plasma viraemia, cellular viraemia (p24 in culture), and the titre of p24 in (uncultured) plasma (HIV antigenaemia). "Only 45 percent of patients with plasma viremia had HIV p24 antigen in either serum or plasma" (Coombs et al., 1989). "Plasma p24-antigen titres before or after acidification did not show any significant correlation with quantification by tissue culture method" (Weber & Ariyoshi, 1992).
Nor does correlation exist between the "most specific" HIV antibody test, the Western blot (WB), and plasma p24. With methods which have a reported lower limit of sensitivity of 10-50pg/ml, p24 can be detected in only 12% of HIV positive sera (Jackson et al., 1989);
(c) "Much of the viral protein secreted from HIV-infected cells is non-particulate, and the proportion of (for example) p24 in virions is a function of the viral genotype and the age of the culture. In extreme cases, less than one percent of the total p24 and gp120 present is in virions" (McKeating & Moore, 1991). [It must be pointed out that in the AIDS literature, the terms "HIV", "HIV isolation", "pure particles", "virus particles", "virions" and "infectious particles", have a variety of meanings and include all of the following, but most often without proof of the presence of a particle: (i) "RNA wrapped in protein"; (ii) material from the cell culture supernatants which passes through cell tight filters but through which organisms such as mycoplasmas may pass; (iii) the pellet obtained by simple ultracentrifugation of the culture supernatant; (iv) recently, very often, detection in AIDS cultures of p24 (Papadopulos-Eleopulos et al., 1993a)].
In the process of preparing plasma for factor VIII extraction, great care is taken to exclude cells. Even if some cells are inadvertently present, it would be most unlikely that they would constitute "a meaningful source of HIV transmission" since, like "HIV particles", "infected" cells present in the plasma of a seropositive donor would be diluted many times over by the plasma and cells from the manifold number of non-seropositive donors from which factor VIII is made.
May the Lord bless and keep your son.
This mostly from Factor 8. It takes only one unit from a prisoner in Arkansas who had been sharing needles to contaminate the whole batch and infect many haemophiliacs who used the Factor 8 as a clotting agent.
The ADC continued to collect blood donated by prisoners who donated to earn cigarette noney and hence were motivated to lie and continued to export it after the FDA had banned its use in the US.
Thanks friend.
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