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Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could ``pose a dangerous public health risk.'' As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies. ``If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague,'' Huckabee...

TORONTO -- A Toronto judge has not only acquitted senior administrators of the blood system of all criminal charges in the tainted-blood tragedy, she has suggested they were utterly innocent and never should have been charged in the first place. In a forcefully written judgment, Madam Justice Mary Lou Benotto of the Ontario Superior Court said that the accused acted professionally and reasonably in the face of a bedevilling public-health problem, and that the horrific infection of hemophiliacs with HIV-AIDS was not their fault. "The events here were tragic. However, to assign blame where none exists is to compound the...

Dozens of blood banks in Peru have been closed after at least four people were infected with the HIV virus through contaminated transfusions. The government said all 240 of the country's facilities would be thoroughly screened, amid what is being described as a national emergency. The patients were all infected at a hospital in the port city of Callao. Officials insisted Peru's blood banks met international standards and urged people to continue giving blood.

REGINA–The wife who steadfastly stood behind her HIV-positive husband as the sordid details of his affairs were exposed in court broke down in sobs yesterday when the former football player was hauled away to jail. Trevis Smith, a one-time CFL linebacker, was convicted of aggravated sexual assault for exposing two women to the virus that causes AIDS by having unprotected sex without telling them about his condition. Provincial court Judge Kenn Bellerose, who delayed sentencing until Feb.26, warned Smith he will be going to prison. "I'll be brutally honest with you. It's not going to be a community-based sentence," Bellerose...

At this year's International AIDS Conference, former president Bill Clinton fielded criticisms that he had not "done enough" about the HIV virus. In activist-speak, this means that he didn't throw enough of American taxpayers' money at the problem. Of all the criticism that could have been leveled against him, this is the most absurd. During Clinton's last year in office, the U.S. government spent $12.2 billion to fight AIDS. If it were possible to simply spend the disease out of existence, we would have done it long ago. If attendees of the conference wanted to challenge the former president, they'd...

Former US president Bill Clinton listens to Bill Gates during a Symposium on "Priorities in Ending the Epidemic" at the XVI International Aids Conference in Toronto, Canada.(AFP/Jorge Uzon)

Brits given US Aids blood Deadly ... the HIV virus By EMMA MORTON Health reporter BRITISH patients were given blood donated by Aids-ridden American prisoners in a shocking medical blunder, The Sun can reveal. Blood from Arkansas State Jail was used at Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary, US lawyers have confirmed. Official figures show at least 3,000 Britons were infected with HIV or Hepatitis C from US blood in the 1970s and 80s. Of these 1,250 had HIV. And just 384 are still alive. The Sun has established that a “handful” of these received prisoners’ blood. The true figure could be...

Associated Press TORONTO — The case against four physicians and a U.S. pharmaceutical company accused of failing to properly screen blood that infected thousands of Canadians with HIV and hepatitis was in jeopardy Monday after a key witness cast doubt on some evidence. After years of investigation, opening arguments were set to begin in the criminal trial of New Jersey-based Armour Pharmaceutical Co.; the former medical director of the Canadian Red Cross, Dr. Roger Perrault; two other Canadian doctors and one from the United States. But Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto was told that a prosecution witness has questioned...

Dr. Roger Perrault The trial of the doctor at the centre of the tainted blood scandal is set to begin Monday after months of legal wrangling and delays. Dr. Roger Perrault, former national medical director of the Canadian Red Cross, faces criminal charges for his alleged role in allowing hemophilia patients to receive tainted blood products in the 1980s and early 1990s. The incident is widely considered to be Canada's worst medical disaster of the last century. More than 1,000 Canadians were infected with HIV and as many as 20,000 contracted hepatitis C after receiving the blood. It's not...

OTTAWA (CP) - A new Hollywood film will dramatize the story of how contaminated blood from Arkansas prisoners found its way into the veins of thousands of Canadian hemophiliacs, killing many. Blood Trail will make revelations that point to criminal negligence and raise suspicions of murder, says Elizabeth Fowler of Clear Pictures Entertainment "There's bits here and bits there and that's how they managed to get away with it. You put it all together and you go, 'Whoa!' " An RCMP investigation has been underway for close to five years, but no charges have been laid in connection with the...

Hollywood studio to produce feature based on tainted blood scandal By DENNIS BUECKERT OTTAWA (CP) - A new Hollywood film will dramatize the story of how contaminated blood from Arkansas prisoners found its way into the veins of thousands of Canadian hemophiliacs, killing many. Blood Trail will make revelations that point to criminal negligence and raise suspicions of murder, says Elizabeth Fowler of Clear Pictures Entertainment, one of two partners in the project. "The complete story in the proper context has never been told in a dramatic way," Fowler said in an interview Tuesday. "There's bits here and bits there...

F A C T O R 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL(... or how can Hollywood support a clinton, Mr. Gere?)  

Factor 8 - The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal

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...

<p>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.</p>

TORONTO (CP) - The doctor at the centre of the tainted blood tragedy that left thousands infected with HIV and hepatitis C will know next month whether he will stand trial. Defence lawyer Eddie Greenspan says any insinuations that Dr. Roger Perrault, the former head of the Canadian Red Cross, wants to escape justice are "dead wrong." Greenspan says Perrault appreciates the enormity of the disaster and that if he were healthy he would stand trial "in a New York minute." Perrault is charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm and common nuisance endangering the public. The 68-year-old is applying...

Tainted-blood victim still feels left out By NICK GARDINER Staff Writer SMITHS FALLS -- Still on the outside looking in. That's how Tina Lyon feels even as the Canadian Red Cross awaits formal sentencing Thursday for distributing tainted blood that left her with hepatitis C after a blood transfusion in 1985. The Red Cross was fined $5,000 after pleading guilty in Hamilton court May 30 to violating the Food and Drug Regulation Act. The agency also agreed to set up a $1.5-million scholarship fund that Lyon hoped could help pay for her son John's second year at Carleton University starting...

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...

Canada Red Cross Guilty in Blood Scandal May 30, 9:23 PM (ET)HAMILTON, Ontario (AP) The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty Monday to distributing blood tainted with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s, and was fined $4,000 in the public health disaster that infected thousands. More than 1,000 Canadians contracted blood-borne HIV and up to 20,000 others were infected with hepatitis C after receiving the tainted blood products. About 3,000 people had died by 1997 and the death toll has grown, but recent estimates were not available. "(The) Canadian Red Cross Society is deeply sorry for the injury and death...

HAMILTON, Ontario - The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty Monday to distributing blood tainted with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s, and was fined $4,000 in the public health disaster that infected thousands. More than 1,000 Canadians contracted blood-borne HIV and up to 20,000 others were infected with hepatitis C after receiving the tainted blood products. About 3,000 people had died by 1997 and the death toll has grown, but recent estimates were not available. "(The) Canadian Red Cross Society is deeply sorry for the injury and death ... for the suffering caused to families and loved ones of...