The Observer view on the infected blood scandal: victims of this cruel experiment deserve justice (20 April 2024)

Summary

Children being subjected to lethal medical experiments sounds like the plot of a dystopian horror film. Yet that is exactly what happened in the UK in the 1970s and 80s. New documents seen last week by the BBC reveal the extent to which children with haemophilia and other blood clotting disorders were enrolled in clinical trials, often without their parents’ consent. Most of them were infected with HIV or hepatitis C as a result of being treated with blood products that doctors knew could kill them. At one boarding school for boys with haemophilia used by the doctors conducting these trials, Treloar College in Hampshire, 75 out of the 122 pupils who attended between 1974 and 1987 have died as a result of their HIV or hepatitis C infections.

The independent inquiry on the contaminated blood scandal estimated that 1,250 people contracted both HIV and hepatitis C as a result of these agents, and between 2,400 and 5,000 people hepatitis C alone. Others contracted these viruses after receiving blood transfusions following surgery or childbirth; it is thought that up to 100 people were infected with HIV this way, and 27,000 people with hepatitis C. Around 2,900 people have died so far.

One gets a sense of the horrific trauma the state inflicted on people by reading the evidence those affected gave the inquiry.