Posted on 12/27/2003 10:04:34 PM PST by Wallaby
Michael Galster of Pine Bluff filed a complaint in U.S. District Court this week against Kelly Duda of Little Rock. Galster wants a judge to stop Duda from showing the documentary Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal next month at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Galster, who operates an orthopedic clinic in Pine Bluff, does not have a registered copyright on the documentary. He claims, however, that federal law protects him as the author from "any intentional distortion, mutilation or modification" of his work. "This film is the plaintiff’s sole cinematic production," the lawsuit says, "and it must be presented as the plaintiff intended." In the late 1970s and early 1980s, more than 1,000 people in Canada were infected with HIV through the country’s blood supply, and more than 10,000 were infected with Hepatitis C. Some of those infected claim that tainted blood came from inmates at the Cummins Unit near Grady. Officials had attempted to recall some of the blood product made with inmates’ plasma in 1983, after discovering that ineligible donors had taken part in the Cummins program. In 1997, a Canadian commission studying what is called the "tainted blood tragedy" described in its final report how blood made its way from Arkansas to Canada in the late 1970s and early 1980s through a Montreal-based company called Continental Pharma and a Toronto company called Connaught Laboratories. |
According to a report earlier this month by the Canadian broadcasting group, CTV, Inc., Factor 8 claims that the blood center continued shipping inmate blood to Canada after 1983.
Duda’s Little Rock telephone number is unlisted. He did not return an e-mail requesting comment. Galster’s court filing says he began working on the documentary in 1998 after finishing his book, Blood Trail. Galster says in an affidavit that he hired Duda to help him. But, after years of working on the project together, Galster claims Duda has "stolen my project... and corrupted its content," the lawsuit claims. Factor 8 is included in a list of documentaries set to compete in the Slamdance Film Festival. A recent news release from festival organizers describes the film as an 85-minute documentary directed by Duda that "investigates the sale of tainted blood from infected prisoners to Canada, Europe and Japan, thus spreading AIDS and Hepatitis C." Galster is not mentioned. The Slamdance Film Festival is a competition for emerging filmmakers that coincides with the Sundance Film Festival. The Arkansas Department of Correction’s Cummins Unit operated the state’s only prison plasma program from the mid-1960s until 1989. Hundreds of inmates sold plasma each week and were paid as much as $7 per donation.
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Of course he has it for the book. But the video was a work in progress, and I doubt that it could have been copyrighted before Kelly broke off communication.
Maybe there's some common law ownership rights, I don't know.
Not a mad brat in the lot! But I'm not in America's bratland at the moment, I'm on the left coast, smack in the enemy's Bay Area stronghold. Around here 3% of the population eat brats. The rest are vegans who who eat seaweed and pickled goat cheese and drive Mini Coopers or Volvo wagons with stickers supporting Howard Dean and all the famous leftist causes ("save the endangered Skookney Flats North Bay Estuary Wetlands Tributary plaid salamander subspecies").
Well, me too. Kelly's been out of sight for so long, I never expected him to reemerge.
Grisham's good, but he writes about lawyers.
I think Galster's better, and he writes about people.
Prison blood flowed to Canada, despite problems
"The lucrative blood centre at Grady, Ark., was originally run by a company called Health Management Associates, but many operations were run by prisoners themselves, according to Duda's 90-minute documentary."Prisoners drew blood and collected bribes from fellow inmates for the privilege of "bleeding," according to inmates interviewed for the documentary. Prisoners were eager to donate blood because they were paid for doing so.
"The documentary also says at least 38 blood donors at the facility were infected with hepatitis B, rather than four as reported by the Krever inquiry on Canada's tainted-blood scandal. Hepatitis B was later determined to be a strong indicator of HIV infection.
"'It was far worse than anyone knew up there (in Canada), as far as the quality of the blood was concerned,' Duda said in a phone interview."
Now that is very odd. Kelly knows perfectly well donors got drugs -- Percodan. Why does he say it was for money? It wasn't the dab of money. Donors were willing to PAY (bribe) a trustee in order to donate. Those "yellow boy" pills were the coin of the realm in Cummins. They bought private time (free of guards' surveillance) for sex, and goods like cigarettes and coffee.
Incidentally, I suspect Percodan is a close cousin to the pain-killer / opiate that addicted Rush Limbaugh. Heady stuff.
More great findds Wallaby!
Galster was the whistleblower on the Arkansas prisoner blood supply. US hospitals refused to buy blood from the company marketing the prisoner blood. But Canada and other foreign nationals bought the tainted blood.
Clinton's FDA knew the Arkansas blood was HB positive after tests revealed 6 out of 10 were "tainted". Bill Clinton is culpable in the Canadian deaths.
Greetings to your wife.
I sure hope there is, it would be a shame if the situation was allowed to stand.
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