British Doctors intentionally inject kids with tainted blood

[Blind_Io]

This just makes me want to vomit.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007180212,00.html

BRITISH doctors used kids as guinea pigs by giving them blood riddled with HIV and deadly hepatitis, the Sun can reveal.

Medics knew some donors were heroin-injecting prisoners in American jails, but still tested their “high risk” blood on young Brit haemophiliacs.

Victims were aged from just three months to 15.

The truth emerged as Lord Archer of Sandwell opened a public inquiry in London into the scandal.

Yesterday, one health expert likened the child victims to “canaries sent down into the mines”. Most haemophiliacs were not told they had HIV or hepatitis for several years.

Others only found out by reading their medical notes. The delay meant some adult haemophiliacs infected their wives or girlfriends with HIV.

US prisoners were paid for their blood to buy food or cigarettes, as The Sun revealed last year.

The blood was used to make clotting agent Factor 8 to treat haemophiliacs whose blood does not clot.

In the late Seventies and early Eighties almost 5,000 haemophiliacs were infected. At least nine kids were given infected blood. Nearly 2,000 haemophiliacs have died and many others are terminally ill.

In documents seen by The Sun, UK medics refer to the importance of testing blood products on “virgin haemophiliacs” — kids who had not had them before.

There was no way of testing for HIV or Hepatitis C at the time.

Factor 8 was then “heat treated” but experts said the only way to test if it eradicated diseases was by trying it on patients. In a letter from the Oxford Haemophilia Centre to all UK centres, officials say: “It is very important to find out by studies in human beings to what extent the infectivity of the various concentrates has been reduced.”

Roddy Morrison, of the Haemophilia Society, said: “This was a treatment disaster. There were gross failings by the Government and clinicians.”

Carol Grayson, whose haemophiliac husband Peter died aged 47 after being infected with HIV and Hepatitis C, likened the blood tragedy to Nazi experiments on prisoners.

Fighting back tears, ex-nurse Carol, 47, from Newcastle upon Tyne, said: “They knew the blood products came from the highest risk donors.”

Ever hear of informed consent you asswipes?

[Firecat]

Only in America....wait a second.

[chaos386]

That's absolutely disgusting.

[Peter3hg]

It is shocking but it is also nearly 30 years ago, hardly news.
I just hope this doesn't happen today.

[Viper007Bond]

Originally Posted by Firecat

Only in America....wait a second.

Exactly my thoughts.

[WheatKing]

Actually this happened in america with blood sold to canada..

Bill Clinton back when he was govener of Arkansas allowed the prision system to collect and sell blood.. blood they knowingly knew was tainted, yet claimed was safe.. bit of background on the issue.. http://prorev.com/blood.htm 60,000 canadians were infected with Hep C. due to this.

[Goose+]

Bad news for vampires.

[BlaRo]

Originally Posted by Peter3hg

It is shocking but it is also nearly 30 years ago, hardly news.

Are you serious?

[Peter3hg]

Originally Posted by BlaRo

Are you serious?

Yes. This is as much news as if I suddenly found an article on the Titanic sinking. This has been in the papers many times, I remember reading about it about 3 years ago. There really is no point discussing something they last did well over 20 years ago.

[zenkidori]

It's not cool to post bad things about the british or europeans, so it's not news, even if you havn't heard of it.

[BerserkerCatSplat]

Wow, that's brutal.

[Cobol74]

The weird thing is that this is a function of the decline in manufacturing in this country (no wait I'll explain). When there were many factories the blood transfusion service used to call regularly and the workers were generally given work time to donate (Not Sell) their blood. As manufacturing hit the toilet and plants closed down many donors were no longer contacted in this way and so donations fell causing a shortage. The ready supply of blood that could be bought was the tainted stuff from the USA.

Now if you think like the people in-charge at the time they are between a rock and a hardplace, import the known to be tainted product and heat treat it or have a rather large shortfall continue. They chose the former option, but as the article states they could not test that the treatment actually worked, so it would appear that someone decided that the way to find out was to give the blood product (Factor 8 ) to the young Haemophiliacs. This would be a good test, in their minds, as this population would be certain not to have caught it from sex and were unlikely to be drug users.

In my humble opinion a complete and utter disgrace - akin to manslaughter. As stated this has actually been known about for quite a number of years - least I knew about it anyway at least 10 years ago, only now have the victims managed to set up an inquiry and are getting wide publicity as government after government have avoided the issue.

[-Cpt. J.-]

70s and 80s... thats before the risk of AIDS was known.
I am just glad they do not do it anymore. It's still disgusting tho.

[chaos386]

Originally Posted by Peter3hg

Yes. This is as much news as if I suddenly found an article on the Titanic sinking. This has been in the papers many times, I remember reading about it about 3 years ago. There really is no point discussing something they last did well over 20 years ago.

Blame the Sun. They're the ones who reported on it.

Originally Posted by zenkidori

It's not cool to post bad things about the british or europeans, so it's not news, even if you havn't heard of it.

Come on now, there's no sense making this into an America vs. Europe fight.

[zenkidori]

Not trying to, just pointing something out. When it's the US everyone jumps in the thread and starts swinging, when it's europe or the UK it's "not a big deal" or old news or whatever.

either way, that's a horrible thing to do.

[epp_b]

Anyone who participated in this ought to be thrown in gulags and fed nothing but moldy breadcrumbs for the rest of their natural lives. This despicable act is inexcusable

Come on now, there's no sense making this into an America vs. Europe fight.

I would say "you must be new here", but you have 1500+ posts

It is shocking but it is also nearly 30 years ago, hardly news.

Wake up. It's news because people who are 30-years-old are only finding out now.

[Peter3hg]

Originally Posted by epp_b

Wake up. It's news because people who are 30-years-old are only finding out now.

No, they were all told about 20 years ago.

[BlaRo]

Originally Posted by Peter3hg

No, they were all told about 20 years ago.

So where's the controversy? Where's the outrage? If I was in England I would be protesting for the "doctors" responsible to be tortured and fair compensation to be given to the victims' families*, and the British public should be. If it's making news now, it should be doing exactly this, and that's exactly how the masses should react. Likewise in America if we brought up the Tuskegee Syphilis Study 30-70 years ago then people would be pretty mad too.

Then again, the difference there is that had been resolved years ago. This hasn't.

*And not the measly crap your councils normally give. Then again we Yanks aren't so innocent in that department either. So yeah, nevermind.

[tigger]

Originally Posted by BlaRo

So where's the controversy? Where's the outrage?

If I found out my doctor gave me hepatitis or AIDs when I was a kid, and knew it was bad blood, i'd hunt that bastard down. Then sue the hell out of the gov't for knowing about it. What a terrible thing to do.