Victims and relatives want ‘justice’ over infected blood

HAEMOPHILIA sufferers exposed to contaminated blood products in what has been described as the worst treatment disaster in NHS history told their harrowing stories to an independent public inquiry yesterday.

The victims and relatives of those who died after contracting HIV or hepatitis said they hoped the hearing would bring “justice” and expose the truth.

Nearly 2,000 haemophilia patients exposed to HIV and/or hepatitis C-contaminated blood products more than 20 years ago have since died and many others are said to be terminally ill.

Sue Threakall, whose husband Bob died in 1991 after contracting AIDS following the use of clotting agent Factor 8, told the inquiry: “I shouldn’t actually be here today. None of us should.

“Not the inquiry panel who are doing this unpaid, not the widows and certainly not most people sitting here today who are having to battle on a daily basis just to stay alive.

“This terrible tragedy should never have happened, it was wholly avoidable. Warnings were ignored, lessons were not learned and our community was lied to by the people it should have trusted most.”

David Fielding, 51, told the hearing he needed a liver transplant in 1998 after contracting hepatitis C, having taken contaminated Factor 8 in the late 1970s. He said he became aware he was infected with hepatitis B in the 1980s and in 1993 was informed he had hepatitis C, but stated that from medical records he tested positive for the condition in 1981.

In the past clotting factors were produced during a freezing process and created from plasma from a small number of donors. But in the 1970s a method was discovered which meant the substance had a longer shelf life and could be injected by patients at home rather than administered by doctors in treatment centres.

To make the product plasma donations were taken from thousands of donors and pooled together — but if any of the sources were infected with a blood-borne virus the whole batch would be contaminated. A number of suppliers in America paid what became known as “Skid Row” donors for blood. These donors were more likely to be infected with HIV and hepatitis C.