Haemophilia and HIV
posted: 09/03/2009
Transfusion roulette
The New York Times called it "transfusion roulette" (1965): the high rate of hepatitis C among poor people most likely to sell their blood, or what the Mail on Sunday called "killer blood" when the HIV link was reported (1983).
In 1970 the distinguished Richard Titmuss had written a booklet called The Gift Relationship, arguing a system for donating blood was far better than one were blood in bought: the NHS vs the US commercial system.
US blood
What wasn't widely understood was that in the mid-1960s, new methods of treating blood plasma had transformed the treatment of haemophilia and thus greatly increased demand for plasma. The old-style NHS failed to respond; hence the UK imported more US blood.
David Owen, Labour's forceful health minister in 1974-76, struggled to promote self-sufficiency and failed. Pre-devolution Scotland moved faster to use heat-treated blood. Whitehall seemed both slow and careless.
The Tories proved arguably far worse after they won the 1979 election. They blocked replacing the substandard laboratory which meant we depended on the USA. The problem carried on for far longer and killed many more people as a result. Only in 1987 did health minister Tony Newton (a good guy), announce a £10m special fund to help victims. Only by 1991 was the screened blood supply secure again.
Twenty years on some compensation has been paid out by the MacFarlane (HIV) and Skipton (Hepatitis C) trusts to 5,000 or so victims of infected blood transfusions. But far less than in Ireland, for example, which took half the time the UK took to sort out its own blood disaster.
Inquiries
Whitehall has staged at least two internal inquiries although, as Lord Archer discovered, a lot of evidence was destroyed "in error". There is strongly circumstantial evidence that evidence was destroyed by the Department of Health, after one EU government lost a legal case over its own mishandling of the crisis.
But no public inquiry was ever agreed so £75,000 was privately raised to fund Archer's two-year independent probe, instigated by Lord Morris, ex-disability minister and president of the Haemophilia Society.
Other countries have done better. In France two blood transfusion officials were jailed in 1993 ("scapegoats", said allies). Canada and, as long ago as 1991, Ireland, set up generous compensation schemes.
Our approach has been "niggardly and inadequate", Archer says; officials have ganged up from the start against an inquiry. Most health secretaries have mishandled this, and official liability for mistakes has never been admitted in the UK.
British vice
A British vice, I fear. Lord Archer wants a statutory commission with agreed entitlements. That public inquiry would be nice. So would a formal apology.
Who was helpful? I asked Peter Archer. Certainly David Owen and Lord Jenkin (social services secretary, 1979-81), he says. Lord Warner declined to give evidence. No current ministers have spoken. Oddly enough, health officials were not obstructive, were even helpful in a quiet way, as if they wanted to do good by stealth. Archer had three meetings with them, not minuted, of course.
The official position now? They're "studying" the report.
You can sign a petition to Number 10 to implement what the Archer report recommends
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