UK: Finds Cover-up of Decades-Long Infected Blood Scandal

A decades-long UK scandal in which thousands of people died after being treated with infected blood was covered up and largely could have been avoided, according to a bombshell report published Monday.
More than 30,000 people were infected with viruses such as HIV and hepatitis after being given contaminated blood in Britain between the 1970s and early 1990s, the Infected Blood Inquiry concluded.
Victims included those needing blood transfusions for accidents and in surgery, and those suffering from blood disorders such as haemophilia who were treated with donated blood plasma products.
Some 3,000 of them died, and more will follow, in what has been described as the biggest treatment disaster in the eight-decade history of the state-run National Health Service (NHS).
In some instances, children with bleeding disorders were treated as “objects for research”. Many went on to develop and die from HIV and hepatitis.
The long-awaited report, running to more than 2,500 pages, laid bare a “catalogue of failures” with “catastrophic” consequences for victims and their loved ones.
“I have to report that it could largely, though not entirely, have been avoided,” concluded its author, judge Brian Langstaff.
His team found that successive governments and health professionals failed to mitigate risks despite it being apparent by the early 1980s that the cause of AIDS could be transmitted by blood.
Blood donors were not screened properly and blood products were imported from abroad, including from the United States where drug users and prisoners were used for donations.
Too many transfusions were also given when they were not necessarily needed, the report added.
There were even attempts to conceal the scandal, including evidence that officials in the health department destroyed documents in 1993.