The taintedblood Timeline - what really happened...
"To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay, right or justice."
Magna Carta - 15th June, 1215
"Cutter's source of blood is 100 percent from Skid-Row derelicts (Transfusion: May/June, 1974)."
Note: It is sad to read of the detrimental consequences of the UK purchasing commercial Factor VIII and IX upon the USA's attempts to form their own volunteer donor programs.
Type: Letter. Dr J Garrott Allen writing to Dr William Maycock of BPL. Dated 6th January 1975.
Location: USA
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The following was recorded in writing by Dr Walford in 1980: "I must emphasise that 90% of all post-transfusion (and blood-product infusion) hepatitis in the USA and elsewhere is caused by non-A, non-B hepatitis viruses which (unlike Hepatitis B) cannot, at present, be detected by testing donor blood."
Dr Walford goes on to state: "This form of hepatitis can be rapidly fatal (particularly when acquired by patients with pre-existing liver disease) or can lead to progressive liver damage..."NOTE: We would like to draw attention to the level of knowledge that the DHSS possessed in 1980. This is the knowledge they had then; the very same information that the haemophiliac community are only discovering now. However, this is not a question of government only having the ability to understand the situation with regard to fatalities from viral hepatitis after they had happened, this letter of 1980 demonstrates full comprehension by the DHSS of the gravamen of such infections from commercial imports. Therefore, we must ask why any preventative action wasn't taken by the DOH and why was it that a complete myth was somehow propagated that NANBH was "mild and often asymptomatic"?
Type: Dr Diana Walford, MED SM4. Letter to Mr Harley. 15 September 1980
Location: UK
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Type: Claim
Location: UK
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The report came out of the opinion held by Ministers that the infection of haemophiliacs could have been avoided had the United Kingdom achieved self-sufficiency in blood products; a policy Government initiated in 1975.
Note:
The review conveniently omits important correspondence between Government bodies in the timeframe 1973-79, and instead concentrates more on efforts to address the failings highlighted in the Medicines Inspectorate report of BPL Elstree, which, if they had been any normal business, would certainly have been closed down. However, due to Crown Immunity, the Government avoided the closure of BPL and they continued to process blood products in a condemned facility. The question must therefore be asked as to why this facility was allowed to fall into such disrepair?
Press Release, 27 February 2006
Link #3
Type: Report - Chronology
Location: UK
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The press release presents conclusions as fact rather than opinions, whereas the Department of Health report itself concludes that "The information gathered during this review has been at times contradictory and incomplete, but the following conclusions can be "inferred"."
Note: The report is a review which focuses upon "surviving" documents from 1973 (when a decision was made to pursue self-sufficiency for England and Wales) to 1991 (when a validated screening test for HCV was introduced in the UK).
The following shortcomings are mentioned:
- The report does not have a named author
- There is no mention of what information was given to patients regarding the safety of products to enable them to give informed consent
- The report fails to mention the use of UK prison blood in clotting factors
- The report fails to explain why the phased redevelopment of the Government facility for producing blood products took a year to implement and why the laboratory was allowed to continue manufacturing whilst having been declared 'unfit' under the Medicines Act 1968.
Type: Press Release
Location: UK
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