Dear All,

It’s one of the most shocking scandals you’ve probably never heard of. More than 30,000 people in Britain, including almost 400 children, were infected by contaminated blood and developed HIV and Hepatitis C. This happened in the 1970s and 1980s but for years the British government attempted to deny culpability and downplay what had happened.

Now, four decades later, an inquiry has concluded that the British authorities and the National Health Service knowingly exposed tens of thousands of patients to deadly infections through contaminated blood and blood products – and then hid the truth about this for years.

The chairperson of the inquiry, former High Court judge, Sir Brian Langstaff, describes the government’s behaviour as “downright deception” and mentions a “pervasive cover-up.” The government had resisted a proper inquiry into the matter for years and it was only in 2017 that the then prime minster, Teresa May, agreed to set up the inquiry. It then took six years to complete. With the publication of its findings, the suffering of victims has finally been officially acknowledged.

After the publication of the report last month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologised to the survivors and affected families saying it was “a day of shame for the British state.” The details of a compensation package are now being worked out. But some four decades on, the scale of the tragedy and the extent of the governmental cover-up has finally come to light. What happened was that the NHS continued giving people blood products that they knew to be unsafe. Often they did not even bother to inform these patients when they tested them for HIV or Hepatitis C.

A large number of those infected very early on were haemophiliacs. They were infected by contaminated blood products from America. This is because in the 1970s UK doctors found there was not enough supply locally of the clotting agent called Factor VIII which was being used successfully to treat haemophiliacs. The authorities began to import this blood product from the US. They didn’t realise that the way the blood was collected there made it fundamentally unsafe. In the UK, blood came for volunteer donors who were properly screened but in the US this was a business. American donors were paid for their blood and many of these donors were addicts or people in other desperate situations so they would often lie about fundamental health issues, lifestyle etc.

Even after it was noticed that many of these haemophiliac patients were getting infections and developing hepatitis (then called ‘non-A non-B’ and later identified and named Hepatitis C), the authorities refused to acknowledge a possible issue. In 1975 the World Health Organisation advised countries not to import blood products but Britain continued to do so. Even after health experts had warned the Haemophilia Society in Britain of the dangers of transmission via blood products of the new virus (HIV) and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS, the health service continued giving these imported blood products to haemophiliacs.

By 1984 scientists were able to develop a test for HIV. This is when doctors in the UK began to realise the scale of the contamination. Despite this, Britain did not change its treatment policy. Campaigner Jason Evans, whose father was infected and later died of AIDS, has put years into researching this and has found a paper trail of correspondence in which health officials decide to carry on with the policy because not doing so would have “commercial implications.”

So, budgetary considerations were put above human lives. Stories of those affected are heart-rending: hundreds of little children, young parents and teenagers were infected… Around 3,000 people died as a result of the infections. Currently a victim dies every four days. Not only were these people infected but for years they were not told what had happened. After they were informed of the diagnosis many of them were told to keep quiet about it.

Jason Evans’s research features in Marcus Plowright’s award-winning documentary In Cold Blood which interviews some of the victims as well as gives a clear picture of the authorities’ negligence. He uncovers a clear paper trail, including evidence of many documents being destroyed and the time frame of this. A former head of a Haemophilia Centre at the time, Dr Mark Winter is also a powerful interviewee as he is able to provide a vivid picture of what was happening in terms of what doctors did and did not know and what the authorities did and did not do.

The AIDS epidemic cast a dark shadow over the last two decades of the Twentieth Century. Even though scientists were able to develop a test for HIV by 1984, the damage had already been done for many people. Ironically, one group was of those people who became infected during a lifesaving surgery such as a heart bypass. One such case is that of tennis champion Arthur Ashe who was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1988. He is believed to have been infected though blood transfusions during his second heart surgery in 1983. Author Isaac Asimov was also infected with the virus though a blood transfusion he received in 1983.

Patients believing this gift of blood could save their lives were killed by it. And in the case of Britain’s infected blood scandal, victims were given not just a death sentence but in many cases a life sentence as well – trapped in the confines of a terrible illness. The way the families and victims have campaigned to have this injustice recognised and redressed is truly admirable.

Best wishes.

Umber Khairi