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Clinton and the Killer Blood
Progressive Review ^
| May 2005
| Canadian Press
Posted on 10/30/2005 7:16:10 PM PST by Liberty Wins
A documentary by US film-maker Kelly Duda, has fresh evidence of Arkansas prison officials selling infected blood products collected from inmates with AIDS during the administration of former governor Bill Clinton.
The film, titled Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal, will be shown at the American Film Institute Festival in Los Angeles on November 8. Duda spent almost ten years researching the story of the tragic blood policy in Arkansas prison system that led to thousands of hemophiliacs world-wide being infected with both AIDS and hepatitis.
The contaminated blood was used to manufacture clotting agents for hemophiliacs and exported to Canada, the UK and Europe during the 1980s and 1990s.
Dudas film gives new details about the scandal, including falsification of medical records by prison authorities to hide the fact that the blood came from infected prisoners, who were paid to donate their blood.
Claims have also been made in the documentary that Clinton may have known about the infected blood. It would be ludicrous that Bill Clinton did not know that the plasma program was experiencing problems, said Randal Morgan, deputy director of the Department of Corrections.
The tainted blood scandal first erupted in Canada when it was discovered that more than 1,000 Canadians was infected with blood-borne HIV and up to 20,000 others had contracted hepatitis C. Officials considered it one of the worst public health disasters in Canadian history.
The Canadian Hemophilia Society is asking the RCMP to consider the documentary as new evidence in the ongoing police investigation into the tainted-blood scandal.
According to the Scottish Sunday Herald, hemophiliacs in the UK have demanded an investigation by the government, and numerous lawsuits have been filed against pharmaceutical companies handling the blood products.
TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: aids; arkansasprisons; clinton; crime; krinton; leftistarrogance; leftistconspiracy; leftistgreed; taintedblood
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Compilation of information on the tainted blood scandal from articles in the Canadian press found on the Progressive Review website.
To: Liberty Wins
wait a second......bill clinton had aids infested blood put out into the blood supply in order to infect ordinary citizens?
2
posted on
10/30/2005 7:18:28 PM PST
by
Stellar Dendrite
( Mike Pence for President!!! http://acuf.org/issues/issue34/050415pol.asp)
To: Liberty Wins
Clinton found his legacy.
3
posted on
10/30/2005 7:18:59 PM PST
by
ncountylee
(Dead terrorists smell like victory)
To: Liberty Wins
This story has been discussed before on FR, mainly while Clinton was still President. Hundreds may have died, or may die in the future, because of this, but the mainstream press has been remarkably uninterested. They have more urgent issues to attend to, like whether George W. Bush missed any National Guard meetings or whether someone in the White House spoke to a reporter about nepotism in the CIA.
To: Liberty Wins
5
posted on
10/30/2005 7:23:28 PM PST
by
Brian Mosely
(A government is a body of people -- usually notably ungoverned)
To: Liberty Wins
Well, well, well...clinton bright light to the democrats might be put out....interesting, but we've known about this for several years and the mainstream media wanted nothing to do with this.
To: Liberty Wins
This was discussed for years on FR, in great detail.
If the movie debuts at a film festival in LA and people actually pay attention to it, it will be the first time ever that it has ever gotten out of the box of MSM suppression. Not even the Canadian press would touch it, because they loved clinton so much.
7
posted on
10/30/2005 7:29:40 PM PST
by
Cicero
(Marcus Tullius)
To: Brian Mosely; Alamo-Girl; Liberty Wins; Stellar Dendrite; ncountylee; Verginius Rufus; Mia T; ...
Let's not forget Alamo girl's hard work on this too...
click here.
8
posted on
10/30/2005 7:30:19 PM PST
by
Issaquahking
(Americans defending the homeland....a job an illegal alien will NEVER do....)
To: Mia T
9
posted on
10/30/2005 7:40:47 PM PST
by
WorkingClassFilth
(The problem with being a 'big tent' Party is that the clowns are seated with the paying customers.)
To: Issaquahking
Yes, Alamo Girl has got the whole story (except for the film schedule).
Here's an intriguing connection to the Vince Foster death from her website:
New York Post 9/25/98 Maggie Gallagher "Can I tell you a little story? I warn you, I don't know how it ends yet. Maybe I never will. Once upon a time - in fact a day or two after Vince Foster died - a man called the White House Counsel's Office.
"This was not a line that kooks typically rang us up on," my source told me. Lunatics call the main office number. This guy called one of Vince's assistants directly. The man said he had some information that might be important. Something had upset Vince Foster greatly just days before he died. Some thing about "tainted blood" that both Vince Foster and President Clinton knew about, this man said.
"I'm only telling you this now because Vince Foster was very distressed about this only days before his death," the mysterious caller (whose name I am withholding) said. "I'm not saying this caused his suicide. I'm only saying it might have contributed to his distress and I thought someone should know."
The White House Counsel's office didn't pay much attention. "Probably a kook', they agreed around the office. Probably. Except that when his computer name was typed into the computer log of phone calls for Vince, something strange happened. The computer flashed "password required" or some such phrase indicating a special code was needed to open that file. "Aw, probably just a computer glitch, "Bernie Nussbam, then chief White House Counsel, said at the time.
And so the matter, as far as I know, was dropped. A strange little memory fragment, meaningless in itself, no? Until last week, when a story published in The Ottawa Citizen suddenly jogged it front and center. "HIV BLOOD CAME FROM ARKANSAS JAIL," the head line screamed. Then, The Ottawa Citizen reports, "A U.S. firm with links to President Clinton collected HIV-tainted blood from Arkansas prison inmates in the 1980's and shipped it to Canada, newly uncovered documents reveal...
10
posted on
10/30/2005 7:41:03 PM PST
by
Liberty Wins
(Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of all who threaten it.)
To: Issaquahking
Also, Vince Foster apparently defended the company selling the blood, called Health Management Associates (HMA) in a lawsuit.
11
posted on
10/30/2005 7:46:58 PM PST
by
Liberty Wins
(Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of all who threaten it.)
To: Liberty Wins; Budge; CholeraJoe; T'wit
My brother contracted hepatitis C, probably not from Arkansas prison blood, though. Nevertheless, Bill Clinton caused a bunch of people a lot of grief. I will never forget.
Pinging a couple of bloodhounds.
12
posted on
10/30/2005 7:59:29 PM PST
by
Tymesup
To: Stellar Dendrite
No, you have lots of ready to catch up. Arkansas was the last state to use prisoner blood. Gee, who was governor? Who benefited? Who got campaign contributions? Hmmmmm.
13
posted on
10/30/2005 8:01:05 PM PST
by
doug from upland
(David Kendall -- protecting the Clintons one lie at a time)
To: Liberty Wins
I have wondered if guilt over this tainted blood that killed numerous people cause Vince to kill himself. Not in the park. In the WH parking lot.
14
posted on
10/30/2005 8:02:29 PM PST
by
doug from upland
(David Kendall -- protecting the Clintons one lie at a time)
To: Liberty Wins; Alamo-Girl
15
posted on
10/30/2005 8:03:29 PM PST
by
FreedomPoster
(Guns themselves are fairly robust; their chief enemies are rust and politicians) (NRA)
To: Liberty Wins
One never knows what form of Arkanside the klintoons may use...be careful my FRiend, halloween tomorrow, and the klintoon's probably are irritated to say the least of us who drag up there slimy past and remind others at the top of our lung power, and internet ability.
16
posted on
10/30/2005 8:08:09 PM PST
by
Issaquahking
(Americans defending the homeland....a job an illegal alien will NEVER do....)
To: Liberty Wins
1. Dead film-maker walking, what are the odds of her being Fosterized before this film gets shown and the only copy vanishing?
2. Would knowingly allowing people to be infected with AIDS be premeditated murder? What if the perpetrator were a Republican?
17
posted on
10/30/2005 8:08:16 PM PST
by
fella
(Political Correctness = Stuck On Stupid)
To: Liberty Wins
18
posted on
10/30/2005 9:47:45 PM PST
by
Pagey
(The Clintons ARE the true definition of the word WRETCHED!)
To: Liberty Wins
I think this film was scheduled to shown at another film festival a year or two ago, but was pulled at the last minute.
To: WorkingClassFilth; Issaquahking; All
It is stunning that Hollywood would support 2 such obvious thugs and opportunists.... I thought AIDS was one of Hollywood's defining issues....
- CLINTON & THE KILLER BLOOD
-
- THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
- UNDERNEWS
- By Sam Smith
- February 18, 1999
-
- In the mid-1980s, as contaminated blood flowed from
- Arkansas inmates to other countries, then-Governor
- W.J. Clinton sat on his hands despite evidence of
- severe mismanagement in his prison system and its
- medical operations. The prison medical program was
- being run by Health Management Associates, which was
- headed by Leonard Dunn, a man who would brag to state
- police of his close ties to Clinton.
-
- Some of the killer blood ended up in Canada where it
- contributed to the deaths of an unknown number of
- blood and plasma recipients. An estimated 2,000
- Canadian recipients of blood and related products got
- the AIDS virus between 1980 and 1985. At least 60,000
- Canadians were infected with the hepatitis C virus
- between 1980 and 1990. Arkansas was one of the few
- sources of bad blood during this period.
-
- The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has a staff of 24
- working on the case. So far, investigators have
- interviewed about 600 people including in the U.S.,
- Germany and the Netherlands. According to the Ottawa
- Citizen, the team has amassed more than 30,000
- documents.
-
- Other Arkansas plasma was sent to Switzerland, Spain,
- Japan, and Italy. In a case with strong echoes of the
- Arkansas scandal, a former premier of France and two
- of his cabinet colleagues are currently on trial
- stemming from the wrongful handling of blood
- supplies. Some of the blood in the French controversy
- may have come from Arkansas.
-
- A 1992 Newsday report on the French scandal noted
- that three persons had been convicted for their role
- in distributing blood they knew was contaminated:
- "Throughout the 1980s and later, blood was taken from
- prison donors for use in blood banks despite a series
- of directives warning against such a practice.
- According to the report, donations from prisoners
- accounted for 25 percent of all the contaminated
- blood products in France. Blood from prisons was 69
- times more contaminated that that of the general
- population of donors."
-
- The Arkansas blood program was also grossly
- mishandled by the Food and Drug Administration. And
- the scandal provides yet another insight into how the
- American media misled the public about Clinton during
- the 1992 campaign. The media ignored a major Clinton
- scandal despite, for example, 80 articles about it in
- the Arkansas Democrat in just one four-month period
- of the mid-80s.
-
- Here's how Canada's Krever Commissioner report
- describes the beginnings of the problem:
-
- "During 1981-2, the number of AIDS cases in the
- United States reported to the Centers for Disease
- Control in Atlanta grew at an alarming rate. The vast
- majority of the reported cases were of homosexual men
- and intravenous drug abusers. During 1982, cases of
- AIDS transmitted through the use of blood and blood
- products began to be reported.
- The U.S. blood and plasma centers regularly collected
- from two groups of persons who were at high risk of
- contracting AIDS: homosexual men and prison inmates.
- Plasma was collected at centers, licensed by the Food
- and Drug Administration, in prisons in Arkansas,
- Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. By way of
- contrast, because of the high prevalence of hepatitis
- B in prisons, the Canadian Red Cross Society had
- stopped collecting donations from prison inmates in
- 1971."
-
- Suzi Parker, writing in the Arkansas Times, described
- the scene: "At the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas penal
- system during the 1980s, while President Clinton was
- still governor, inmates would regularly cross the
- prison hospital's threshold to give blood, lured by
- the prospect of receiving $7 a pint. The ritual was
- creepy to behold: Platoons of prisoners lying supine
- on rows of cots, waiting for the needle-wielding
- prisoner orderly to puncture a vein and watch the
- clear bags fill with blood. Administrators than sold
- the blood to brokers, who in turned shipped it to
- other sates and to Japan, Italy, Spain and Canada.
- Despite repeated warnings from the Food and Drug
- Administration, Arkansas kept its prison plasma
- program running until 1994 when it became the very
- last state to cease selling its prisoners' plasma.
-
- Mike Galster, a medical practitioner whose
- fictionalized account dramatically raised interest in
- the blood scandal, recalls that at the Pine Bluff
- unit's hospital they also took blood from prisoners.
- When he raised questions about the wisdom of bleeding
- sick people, he was told that even the ill had the
- right to sell their blood.
-
- Here is a time-line of this as yet too known Arkansas
- horror story:
-
- 1981
-
- The Arkansas Board of Corrections puts A.L. "Art"
- Lockhart in charge of the state's troubled prisons.
- An Arkansas Gazette front page feature on Lockhart
- begins by noting that he is "dogged by a public
- reputation as a man who runs roughshod over the
- constitutionally guaranteed rights and welfare of
- inmates. 'I don't why,' he said in an interview with
- the Gazette. 'I don't deserve it.'"
-
- The state's prisons are already a mess. Ten years
- earlier Lockhart had taken over the notorious Cummins
- facility which, according to a member of the
- corrections board, was "still controlled by inmate
- trusties with guns. The inmates called the shots. A
- lot of experts said there was no way to take the guns
- away from them without a riot. But Art did it without
- spilling any blood."
-
- But the Gazette also notes: "The prison system, and
- Cummins, in particular, still is in the transition
- from an institution controlled by the inmates to one
- controlled by guards. On many nights at Cummins,
- there are as few as half a dozen guards to watch
- about 1,650 inmates."
-
- Two years earlier, a prison monitor hired under a
- federal court order, released a report saying there
- was "clear and convincing evidence" that Lockhart and
- other employees beat and kicked inmates needlessly
- after an attempted escape from Cummins. Another
- prison mediator charged that the abuse of inmates had
- increased under Lockhart and that he had obstructed
- efforts at prison reform.
-
- Health Management Associates wins a contract to
- provide health services to state inmates, including
- running a blood plasma donor program.
-
- The Centers for Disease Control and World Health
- Organization establish that AIDS is a blood-borne
- disease. CDC recommends testing and sterilization of
- donor blood. The warning is widely ignored and, as a
- result, according to WHO, some one million people
- become infected. Twenty-two countries will eventually
- have to pay compensation as a result.
-
- FDA asks US companies not to buy prison plasma since,
- due to unsafe sexual and drug practices by many
- inmates, the blood has a high risk of carrying the
- AIDS virus.
-
- JUNE 1983
-
- HMA tells FDA that 38 units of plasma from four
- inmates of the Grady prison should not have been
- collected because the prisoners had once tested
- positive for hepatitis B despite a test at the time
- of collection being negative. HMA sees the hazard as
- slight and thinks there is no need to recall the
- plasma. The Canadian Krever Commission will later
- report that "by 1983, however, an association had
- been identified between hepatitis B and AIDS; most
- persons with AIDS had also been infected with
- hepatitis B. There was a greater than average risk
- that the 38 units of plasma from the four inmates
- could transmit AIDS. Four of the units ended up in
- Canada, the others were sold to corporations in
- Switzerland, Spain, Japan, and Italy."
-
- AUGUST 1983
-
- HMA decides to withdraw the 38 units from circulation
- and FDA concurs. This is the first time that
- Connaught, the Canadian blood firm, has heard of any
- problems. The shipping papers had only shown that the
- blood came from "ADC Plasma Center, Grady, Arkansas."
-
- By this time, however, the blood is already in
- circulation and only 417 of 2409 vials are retrieved.
-
- The same month HMA tells the FDA of a fifth inmate
- with similar problems. He had given 34 units in less
- than a year.
-
- SEPTEMBER 1983
-
- Connaught reviews its approvals for receipt of plasma
- from US centers and finds that twelve have never been
- properly approved. One is the prison center in Grady,
- Arkansas. Other questionable blood has come from four
- prisons in Louisiana. Canadian Red Cross nullifies
- its contract for the blood the same day it finds this
- out.
-
- FEBRUARY 1984
-
- FDA suspends plasma production at the Grady facility
- where an average of 550-600 inmates have been giving
- blood since 1967. UPI regional wire reports that FDA
- finds overbleeding of inmate donors, disqualified
- donors, lack of documentation of testing, and
- inadequate storage. It also notes inaccurate and
- incomplete storage, instances of intentional and
- willful disregard for proposed standards, alteration
- of records and files to conceal violations, as well
- as inadequate training and ineffective supervision of
- the plasma center staff. Within months, however, HMA
- successfully applies for a new license after blaming
- the problems on a corrupt clerk.
-
- 1985
-
- A UPI story recounts how the largest inmate donor
- program in the country -- in the Louisiana state
- prison -- is coming under increased federal scrutiny
- because of what is dubbed the "AIDS scare." Says the
- state's secretary of corrections: "We have no
- intention of shutting it down. It would have the same
- impact as a major industry shutting down in a small
- town: economic chaos." The president of a plasma
- company is quoted as saying, "There is no scientific
- evidence that prisoner plasma is worse than street
- plasma." The programs had, in fact, been shut down
- for six months but were reinstated after the prison
- discovered foreign markets to replace a dwindling US
- demand. Says the plasma company president, "I'd say
- 70 to 80 percent is going overseas. There's a good
- market for it over there, and they don't ask where it
- came from."
-
- FDA finally requires testing of donor blood. Tainted
- blood distribution will continue inside the US until
- 1986. Thereafter, contaminated blood stocks will
- still be shipped from US companies to other
- countries.
-
- Prosecuting attorney Wayne Matthews, after a two
- month state police probe, finds no evidence of drug
- trafficking in the Arkansas prison system. The
- allegation is that HMA employees are diverting drugs
- from the department's pharmacy and selling them to
- inmates, and that prisoners who 'knew too much' about
- drug trafficking were killed or allowed to die.
- "There's just absolutely no evidence whatsoever,"
- says Matthews.
-
- JANUARY 1986