The IBMS sent
their update today. Part of it was their response to the infected blood scandal.
You
can read it here.
The whole
infected blood scandal thing winds me up. I’m in no way belittling what
happened, but is “scandal” the right word for it? I can distinctly remember
a lecture in the second year of my ONC at Brighton Technical College when our
lecturer (my old boss Paul Cabban) was telling us about the UK blood
product situation. He made it quite clear that it was well known and accepted
that the UK was not able to meet its own needs for blood products. There was no
secret about where the USA was sourcing its blood products. It was known that there
was a risk of contracting unidentified (at the time) diseases from these
transfusions. We were told that transfusions of imported blood products (or any
transfusions come to that) were supposedly a last-ditch treatment and that those
receiving them were to be made aware of this.
I also
went to a seminar (also in Brighton) about the first case of HIV in the
UK outside of London where the same information was openly discussed.
This was
in 1982…
The same
information was openly acknowledged when I was doing HNC at Bromley Technical College
(1983-85)
Wasn’t
this information made clear to everyone? Was there really a cover-up? To the best
of my knowledge there was never any secrecy about it.
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