The Guardian: The investigation into the tainted blood scandal in Britain concluded that the matter was exacerbated by a cover-up
The Guardian newspaper said that an investigation conducted on Monday concluded that the scandal that caused thousands of people in the United Kingdom to become infected or die from tainted blood could have been avoided and spread due to a “hidden, widespread and frightening” cover-up. By the National Health Service and the British government.
The newspaper added that in this, long-awaited outcome of a five-year public inquiry, Sir Brian Langstaff, who chaired the investigation, said that the disaster could have been largely avoided. Although not completely, successive governments and other officials did not put an end to the disaster and did not put patient safety first.
More than 30,000 people in the United Kingdom were infected, 3,000 of whom died, with contaminated blood from the seventies until the early nineties. Either by receiving blood transfusions during surgery, or through products manufactured using blood plasma and imported from the United States to treat hemophilia patients.
Speaking Monday in Westminster Central Hall, near Parliament, to launch the report, Mr. Langstaff was given a standing ovation by more than 1,000 injured and affected people. “People still have to care about the effects of what happened, which their loved ones are still suffering from,” he said. “The grief and shock experienced by all those who lost loved ones continues to this day.”
The 2,527-page final report concluded that patients were lied to about the risks and, in some cases, became infected during research conducted without their consent, or, in the case of children, their parents’ consent, and that there were delays. More than 30,000 patients were infected with hepatitis C and AIDS from the 1970s until the early 1990s, due to contaminated products made of blood donated in the United States.
Following the report, the British Treasury will announce a compensation package set to amount to around £10 billion, which will be financed through borrowing.
British government officials say they expect any official response today to be limited, as the report’s publication will mark what one source described as a “day for victims and families,” and that after examining the report, next steps will be determined in the following days.
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