Surviving victims and relatives of those who died as a result of receiving infected blood and blood products from the NHS in the 1970s and 1980s will gather at the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster in a few weeks.
After six years of gathering evidence, Sir Brian Langstaff’s public inquiry there will finally unveil its report on May 20.
There is no doubt that what happened was a tragedy and a scandal, and indeed one of the worst in the history of this country. Thousands of people died, including children, after becoming infected with HIV and hepatitis. Many more lives were destroyed. And there has been no shortage of excuses in recent years. As then Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons in 2015: “To all these people, I would like to say sorry on behalf of the government for something that should not have happened.”
But for all the apologies, there is a distinct lack of candor about what the government is apologizing for – and who should take the blame.
For too long, campaigners say, the suggestion has been that it was all just an unfortunate tragedy that unraveled despite the best intentions of ministers, civil servants, the pharmaceutical industry, the NHS and the Department of Health.
What those planning to meet in the Methodist Hall say they want to hear is not that those engulfed by the scandal had been “very unlucky”, as former Prime Minister John Major had said in evidence to the inquiry, or even that some things could have been done differently.
They will meet in Westminster, the campaigners say, on the expectation that the whole affair was not only entirely avoidable, but also the result of corporate greed, state negligence and a culture of cover-up.
According to the study, an estimated 2,900 people died in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of receiving infected blood or blood products. Of these, 1,170 suffered from varying degrees of hemophilia, a hereditary condition in which the blood does not clot normally.
They had been given a blood clotting product known as Factor VIII, but in a cheap version of it. Much of the blood was imported from US prisons and from high-risk donors, such as sex workers, drug addicts and alcoholics, who were paid. That decision was not inevitable. There were other options.
As reported on Sunday, one of the suppliers, Immuno IG, acknowledged that there was a “significantly higher hepatitis risk” with a Factor VIII product known as Kryobulin 2, made from US plasma, compared to the original product, Kryobulin 1. from unpaid donors in Austria and Germany.
The pharmaceutical company had concluded that “the UK market will accept a higher risk of hepatitis for a cheaper product”.
In 1975, then Health Secretary David Owen promised that Britain would become self-sufficient in blood products to ensure vulnerable patients were at minimal risk. But a different path was taken. Owen became Foreign Secretary and in 1979 the Conservatives took power, but the investment was not made.
The government continued to purchase blood from Arkansas prisons until the mid-1980s, despite the fact that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had banned its sale in the U.S. in 1983.
As the horrors of HIV/AIDS came to light in the 1980s, further decisions were made. Dr. NS Galbraith, Founder and Director of the Communicable Disease Surveillance Center in England and Wales, wrote to the Department of Health and Social Security said in 1983: “All blood products made from blood donated in the US after 1978 should be withdrawn from use until the risk of AIDS transmission from these products is clarified.” But they were not withdrawn. Foreign Secretary Ken Clarke told the House of Commons: “There is no conclusive evidence that AIDS is transmitted through blood products.”
Further decisions were made to destroy government documents, hide HIV test results from those infected and wait until 2017, and only then, under pressure from a class action lawsuit, to launch a public inquiry.
Langstaff now has a decision to make – and campaigners are hopeful he will make the right one. Last year when summarizing the conclusions of an interim message about compensation, he wrote: “My conclusion is that mistakes have been made at the individual, collective and systemic levels. Not only do the infections themselves and their consequences deserve compensation, but so do the wrongs caused by the way the authority responded to what happened.”
It is perhaps also reassuring that the inquiry’s final report has been repeatedly delayed due to the “huge volume” of warning letters Longstaff is required to write to those who will be criticized.