2 Paths of Bayer Drug in 80's: Riskier One Steered Overseas

By WALT BOGDANICH and ERIC KOLI | May 22, 2003 | By WALT BOGDANICH and ERIC KOLI

[Wallaby]

����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� Here is another tainted blood story, familiar to oldtimers on the Free Republic, but one that readers of the New York Times have yet to hear about:

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Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

Tainted blood. Poison from the prisons The Economist World Politics and Current Affairs; AMERICAN SURVEY; Pg. 36 March 13, 1999, U.S. Edition LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS AT THE end of February, a group of Canadian haemophiliacs infected with HIV and hepatitis C descended on Washington. They want an inquiry into why the United States, particularly the federal Food and Drug Administration, allowed the export of tainted prison plasma from Arkansas and Louisiana to Canada in the 1980s. At the time, Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, and the FDA had already ruled that prison plasma was too unsafe to be used for the manufacture of blood products inside the United States. At the time, Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas, and the FDA had already ruled that prison plasma was too unsafe to be used for the manufacture of blood products inside the United States. In January, the same group filed a $ 1 billion suit against the Canadian government and companies involved in the plasma production. This month, it plans to bring lawsuits in the $ 5 billion range which will name the FDA, the states of Arkansas and Louisiana, their prison systems and various medical-care providers for the prison inmates, including Health Management Associates (HMA), which ran the Arkansas prison plasma programme from 1978 to 1994 and also bought prison plasma from Louisiana. The suit may also name the president, if evidence is found that Mr Clinton knew about repeated FDA violations and yet did not shut down the plasma industry in his state's prisons. The Krever commission, set up by the Canadian government in 1995 to look into contaminated blood issues, found that the tainted plasma often came from Cummins prison. Cummins is a vast farm-based penitentiary that sits in bleak countryside, strewn with shanties and burned-out churches, 70 miles south-east of Little Rock. The inmates' blood was sold by the Arkansas Department of Correction to HMA which, in turn, sold it to North American Biologics, a subsidiary of Continental Pharma Cryosan, a blood-broker based in Montreal. From there, it was shipped all through Canada and across the world.

Many Arkansans seemed unaware of the plasma programme in their state prisons until last summer, when Michael Galster, a prison doctor, wrote a fictionalised account that exposed it. In past news reports, prison officials had denied knowledge of what was going on. Yet not only did the prisons run such a programme from 1969 on, they were often in trouble for it. In Cummins, even when the existence of AIDS and hepatitis C was recognised and tests for these diseases became available, they were not aways used; the FDA discovered that one hepatitis-testing laboratory was out of action for two months. Needles were often dirty, so that many inmates now claim to have been infected as they gave blood. (People caught in homosexual acts were, however, removed from the list of suitable donors.) In the early 1980s, the FDA accused the centre of numerous violations and even ordered a temporary shutdown. It didn't matter. Arkansas police investigations have shown that HMA continued to try to find ways to sell inmates' blood, especially to Connaught, a Canadian company that may have sold the plasma worldwide (the matter is under investigation). The Krever commission found that Connaught decided it was "impracticable" to inspect all the plasma-collection sites itself, and decided to rely instead on FDA reports which it did not, in fact, review. In any event, Arkansas prison blood products found their way to Europe and Japan, and in at least one instance were sent back to the United States itself. Whenever trouble appeared, HMA asked for Mr Clinton's help. The group invited a friend of the governor's, Leonard Dunn (now chief of staff to the lieutenant-governor), to come on board as HMA's president in 1984. When the prison's plasma licence was revoked, HMA simply applied for a new one under a different name. Prison administrators wanted to keep the programme, and prisoners liked it for the pocket money it provided: $ 7 a pint, with which they could buy soap and cigarettes. Francis Henderson, the creator of HMA and chairman of its board, maintains that AIDS cases simply did not exist in the South during the 1980s, and that prison plasma was no riskier than other kinds. However, Art Lockhart, then director of the Arkansas Department of Correction, contributed in 1984 to an information bulletin about prison plasma centres published by the American Correctional Association, in which prison populations were said to be at high risk, and concerns were raised about "quality control" in taking blood from them. Despite this, the Arkansas Department of Correction went on running its plasma programme for another decade. In the next few weeks the Canadian haemophiliacs will go to Cummins itself, seeking answers from a state that has long and steadily denied even having a prison plasma programme. It remains unclear whether they will get an invitation to the prison where, in effect, they received a death sentence.

[Wallaby]

drip.

[bornthirtyyearstoosoon]

This is the same company that used Jewish prisoners from Hitler's Concentration Camps for medical experimentation. Do you really believe that a leopard can change its' spots or that a mere forty years can change their corporate mindset or improve their level of concern for their fellow man?

[3AngelaD]

How can we be sure the first article is true?

[T'wit]

Great! Thanks for posting.

I got a personal chortle out of it as well, since I broke the story world-wide in August-September, 199?, i.e., as soon as Mike Galster's book was printed and ready. The NYT is only five years behind! (That was the one adventure in my whole life in the realm of reportage -- not my usual turf :-) )

They also missed Mike's press conference at the National Press Club presenting the story to the national media (I forget the date). You, I and BigM were all present.

Matt Drudge picked up the link, and I wonder about that, too. We handed it to him on a platter five years ago -- Mike actually went to L.A. to do it in person, and I spoke to him at a couple of Freeper rallies -- and again, nothing whatever came of it. I'll bet he remembered, though, when this NYT story hit the wire today.

Linda Tripp: can you talk now? Please check in.

[T'wit]

Argh. That's "1998."

[Great Dane]

Market Considerations Bayer Says Some Wanted Old Product

Does anyone really believe this.

Tainted blood producers and sellers got a pass on this, Kidman lights up a smoke in public, and the whole world gets it's collective knickers in a twist....... priorities, priorities. ????

[BigM]

Bump! Like a bad penny this one.....

[BigM]

Nice to see you're still on the trail...Bump and a drip!

[Wallaby]

"From 1979 through approximately 1985 I was Medical Director for the ADC Plasma Program. This required a small amount of time since once the system was established the coverage was mainly accomplished by other physicians who were hired to cover the plasma center. There was a period of (1982-83) of time during which this took considerable amount of effort, I have no way of estimating now how much time it did require. Due to some serious ruptures of the FDA regulations we were required to shut the center and subsequently sufffered an international recall of the plasm."

Quiz:
(1) Who wrote the above?
(2) To whom was it written?
(3) When?
(4) Who received a copy one month later?

[T'wit]

Bump back, BigM. Wish I could juice this one a little but I'm off to my old Wisconsin haunts in a few hours. Expect I'll be offline for the long weekend, but if I can check in, I will... c,T

[T'wit]

Michael Sullivan's little league coach :-)

[Wallaby]

Is that your answer to (1), (2) or (4)?

[BigM]

Francis "Bud" Henderson

[Wallaby]

Good, but that's the easy (1). How about my other 3 questions?

[T'wit]

Bud Henderson was Mike's little league coach. But I don't know or can't remember to whom he wrote this, or when. I'll guess the CC went to Billy Bentpotus?

[Wallaby]

(1) F. M. Henderson
(2) Dr. Alan Kalmanoff, Executive Director, Institute for Law and Planning Policy
(3) 28 May 1986
(4) Governor Bill Clinton received a copy of the letter, along with Dr. Kalmanoff's report, on June 27, 1986. (The prison plasma program continued throughout the rest of Clinton's term and was not discontinued until 1993.)

[Wallaby]

In my dreams, the New York Times asks Bill Clinton, why, he took no action to close down the prison plasma program after he read this sentence in 1986:
"Due to some serious ruptures of the FDA regulations we were required to shut the center and subsequently suffered an international recall of the plasma."

[Wallaby]

Here's another interesting passage in the report Bill Clinton had on his desk in June 1986:

After the most serious billing problems were resolved, HMA continued running plasma centers and the ADC plasma program. In 1984, plasma that was contaminated with hepatitis because it was not properly screened, was prematurely and improperly distributed by HMA resulting in an international recall and a Federal investigation, as well as an FDA licensure action against HMA. HMA fought very hard to clear up the FDA license action, and to avoid losing the ADC plasma contract.

The most recent plasma contract went to another firm, on low-bid. Apparently, and on the surface, there have not been any notorious new problems with the plasma operation.

Recommendation: The plasma operation should be comprehensively reviewed for abuses, and in the future it should be overseen by the Department of Health to prevent any abuses. To insure against any conflicts of interest, the plasma operation should not go to the contract health care provider.

ADC Contract Medical Care Inquiry, Alan Kalmanoff, et al., June 27, 1986, page 31.