Mark Pack

Awful news from today’s Independent:

More than 800 people with haemophilia have received contaminated blood products putting them at heightened risk of developing vCJD, the Government has disclosed for the first time.

The figures were revealed in a parliamentary answer from Lord Darzi, a Health minister, following the death of a haemophiliac who had received infected blood products…

Lord Morris, who established the privately funded two-year inquiry into the haemophilia “tainted blood” scandal after the Government declined to hold one, said yesterday: “There were only 6,000 haemophiliacs and almost 2,000 died of infection with hepatitis C and HIV. Now another 800 are at risk who have had blood from donors who went on to develop vCJD. As a group they could hardly have been dealt a worse hand – they are the most stricken community in Britain. It is scandalous that the vCJD Incidents Panel has left it seven months [since the death last November] to investigate the implications.”