Experiments on children, the deliberate export of treatments known to be lethal and governments shredding evidence require more than an apology.
“It will be astonishing to anyone who reads this Report that these events could have happened in the UK,” Sir Brian Langstaff’s report into the infected blood scandal begins.
So what? If only. The endless delays, needless suffering and high level negligence, collusion and cover up at the heart of this scandal are increasingly and depressingly commonplace. “This disaster was not an accident,” the report concludes. From 1973, 30,000 people were “knowingly” infected with either HIV or Hepatitis C because “those in authority did not put patient safety first”. Around 3,000 have died.
The report’s findings are bleak:
- Patients were knowingly exposed to unacceptable risks of infection.
- The risks of blood products causing severe infection was well known.
- Blood plasma imported from the US was unsafe and warnings were ignored.
- Patients were experimented on, leading to many being infected.
- “Deliberate destruction of documents” by Department of Health workers amounted to “downright deception”.
Factor VIII. Haemophilia patients lack the protein that clots blood and so risk bleeding to death. Those with haemophilia A, the most common form of the condition, lack Factor VIII; treatment consists of concentrated Factor VIII, a blood-derived protein. US pharma companies paid for blood in prisons, city centres and STD clinics at the height of the AIDs crisis. Thousands of donations were pooled. Only one person needed to be infected to contaminate the batch.
How could we have known? In 1975 Dr Joseph Garrott Allen of Stanford University wrote to Britain’s Blood Products Laboratory advising it to stop using US Factor VIII. American plasma was “extraordinarily hazardous”, he wrote, collected “100% from Skid Row derelicts”. US pharma companies Alpha, Armour, Baxter and Bayer knew the risks years before the truth came out. When Bayer discovered HIV contamination, it sold its inventory overseas rather than destroy it.
Treloar’s School. From 1977, the Lord Mayor Treloar School for disabled pupils in Hampshire included pupils in secret trials testing blood products. Children were “objects of research rather than children… Staff were well aware that their heavy use of commercial concentrate risked causing Aids,” Langstaff reports. Of the 122 pupils with haemophilia at the school between 1970 and 1987, only 30 are still alive.
Destruction of documents. Lord David Owen, health minister in 1974, discovered in 1988 that his ministerial records had been destroyed. Many more have been shredded. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, said there is “evidence of a cover-up going right up to the top”. Langstaff agreed, saying the government had covered up the mistakes of the past and hidden the truth.
Derisory settlement. In 1991, the government settled with people who had been infected with HIV via Factor VIII, refusing liability and making an ex-gratia payment of £42 million – £21,500 for children; £23,500 for single adults; £32,000 for married people; and £60,500 for those married with children.
Langstaff recommends: an apology, generous compensation and Hepatitis C tests for anyone given blood before 1996. Those infected are demanding prosecutions.
How long must we sing this song? Is it really so astonishing that these events could have happened in the UK? Scandals that have resurfaced this year alone include
- the wrongful prosecution of hundreds of Post Office staff;
- pernicious clawbacks from thousands of recipients of carers’ allowance; and
- evidence of brazen impunity in the top ranks of the SAS over dozens of murders in Afghanistan.
All change. Corruption and institutional decay are no longer unusual in British public life. Langstaff is careful to avoid blaming any living individuals and his inquiry cannot find civil or criminal liability – but experiments on children, the deliberate export of treatments known to be lethal and governments shredding evidence require more than an apology.
What’s more… The NHS was at the heart of this debacle. It’s “not a shrine”, Keir Starmer says, and he is surely right.
This article was amended on 21 May to correct the date that Lord David Owen was health secretary.
