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Haemophiliac joins Clinton demo Protesters want a public inquiry into the use of infected blood products A man from Sussex who was infected with HIV and Hepatitis C while being treated for a blood disorder is taking part in a protest in front of Bill Clinton. The man, a haemophiliac, was treated with infected clotting agents in the 1970s when many of the blood products used came from the United States. The former President was governor of Arkansas, where haemophiliacs say blood was collected from high-risk prisoners. The Department of Health says the UK government acted in good faith. The...

Chinese company refuses comment on claims it spread AIDS to hemophiliacs SHANGHAI, China -- A Chinese pharmaceutical company's spokesman refused to comment Wednesday on accusations the company's hemophilia drugs spread HIV to scores of users. Li Wanhua, spokesman for The Shanghai Institute of Biological Products, refused to address the claims in a brief telephone interview. "I have no comment on this at the moment," Li said. Hemophiliacs and the parents of children with HIV say the institute made a hemophilia drug using HIV-infected blood and continued to sell it after the Ministry of Health banned it in 1995. Family members...

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...

Salome Simon doesn't have much. A one-room shack she rents in Majengo, a slum on the edge of Nairobi. A couple of kangas, the bright print wraps she wears as skirts, and a couple of blouses. A transistor radio, some aluminum pots and one little luxury, a gilded bottle of spicy perfume. It isn't much to show for 23 years of hard work, on the job from 7 in the morning to 7 in the evening, every day but Sunday, when she goes to church, and once a year when she visits her family in Tanzania for a few weeks....

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

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. - Former president Bill Clinton called Congress' impeachment of him an "egregious" abuse of the Constitution and challenged those who say history will judge him poorly because of his White House tryst with Monica Lewinsky. Speaking at an academic conference examining his presidency here Thursday, Clinton challenged historian Douglas Brinkley's comments in a newspaper interview that Clinton would be deemed a great president were it not for his impeachment. "I completely disagree with that," Clinton said in his speech at Hofstra University. "You can agree with that statement, but only if you think impeachment was justified. Otherwise, it...

A documentary by US film-maker Kelly Duda, has fresh evidence of Arkansas prison officials selling infected blood products collected from inmates with AIDS during the administration of former governor Bill Clinton. The film, titled “Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal,” will be shown at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles on November 8. Duda spent almost ten years researching the story of the tragic blood policy in Arkansas’ prison system that led to thousands of hemophiliacs world-wide being infected with both AIDS and hepatitis. The contaminated blood was used to manufacture clotting agents for hemophiliacs and exported...

<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 unrelenting stress that would arise from a year-long criminal trial could threaten the life of the doctor at the centre of the tainted blood disaster that left thousands infected with HIV and hepatitis C, his lawyer argued in court Monday. Eddie Greenspan said a trial of this magnitude would elevate stress levels for Dr. Roger Perrault, the former national medical director of the Canadian Red Cross, and could spark another heart attack - one that could be fatal. Perrault, 68, suffered his first heart attack in 1980, and from there underwent a series of operations, including...

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...

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 (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...

Borrowing a page from President Bush, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton told a Boston audience this week that prayer has always played a meaningful role in her life - though accounts from her days as a student radical suggest that's probably not true. "I've always been a praying person," Clinton told a crowd of more than 500, including many religious leaders, at Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza. According to the Boston Globe, the newly religious former first lady "invoked God more than half a dozen times" as she urged society to accommodate religious people who "live out their faith in the...

You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends tell us that the two are cheering Sis on and say she's making all the moves to get ready for the race--presuming she is re-elected by New Yorkers in 2006.

On the eve of President Bush's second inauguration, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is blasting him as the "fear factor" president who tries to sell his irresponsible agenda by scaring the voters. "The fear factor has become the overriding strategic approach that this administration uses," Clinton complained to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. The likely 2008 presidential candidate told the paper that Bush has used scare tactics to rally public support on issues ranging from U.S. policy in Iraq to privatization of Social Security. On Iraq Clinton griped that Bush had even botched the election process, saying that regional balloting...