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Scandal of HIV blood sold as safe by South Africans

Crime/Corruption News Keywords: BLOOD AIDS
Source: The Sunday Times (UK)
Published: August 27 2000 Author: Karen MacGregor and Fiona Fleck
Posted on 08/26/2000 17:00:26 PDT by sarcasm

BLOOD contaminated with the HIV virus and hepatitis has been shipped into Britain from South Africa for 20 years, an investigation has revealed.

The multi-million-dollar racket has been exposed in a World Health Organisation (WHO) report. The blood, coming from one of the nations most seriously affected by Aids, was often labelled as "animal plasma" to avoid the strict checks designed to ensure that only healthy blood gets through.

Investigations so far show that the blood has mainly been moved on to China and India, where thousands faced contamination from it. There is no evidence that any of it found its way into British hospitals.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said last night: "All our blood is tested and double tested. There's an enormous amount of checks made to make sure blood used in our hospitals is safe. We're not aware of any investigation into South African blood at the moment."

However, British police are now "consulting" other European forces over the investigation.

At least two British companies, one based in Guernsey and the other in Berkshire, have been investigated by Austrian detectives. They say unscrupulous processing companies in several countries relabelled the contaminated blood as fit for therapeutic use, then sold it on to India and China.

Several blood brokers are due to appear in court in Austria, facing charges of fraudulent trading and endangering public health. A British Aids expert, Professor Alan Smith, initiated the investigation when he alerted police after he uncovered what he described as the "highly unethical" trafficking while he worked in the virology department of Natal University.

His complaints led the South African Department of Health to commission a WHO blood expert, Dr Wilbert Bannenberg, to investigate. His report estimates that in the past decade the brokers made more than £7m from processing and relabelling blood that is given free in South Africa as "a gift of life".

Bannenburg's report called for an urgent toughening of South Africa's blood export controls. He found that permits for the import and export of blood products between 1997 and 1999 had been inexplicably lost, while current information on permits was "so vague that authorities were unable to determine the source or final destination of the products".

Large amounts of human plasma were classified and exported as "animal plasma" to avoid fears over the scale of South Africa's Aids problem - 3.5m people are infected.

Documents dated 1995 and now with Canadian police showed 15 shipments of "animal plasma" were flown to Belgium, where they were relabelled as human blood from Canada and sold on to a North American company's German plant for processing.

Thousands of people are thought to have been in danger of contracting Aids and hepatitis from plasma made there.

In 1998, Austrian authorities seized 4,000 litres of blood from a Linz-based company, Albovina AG, after a tip-off. The blood was infected with hepatitis B and HIV. The Austrian investigation found that the blood had been shipped to Austria through Guernsey by a South African company.

The manager of one of the British companies involved said it had stopped buying blood from South Africa two years ago as rumours spread within the industry. He insisted that all the blood used in Britain had been sold on as "control" blood for laboratory testing.


they were relabelled as human blood from Canada and sold on to a North American company's German plant for processing.

I wonder why they don't name the North American company.

1 Posted on 08/26/2000 17:00:26 PDT by sarcasm
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To: Alamo-Girl

FYI

2 Posted on 08/26/2000 19:28:18 PDT by sarcasm
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To: sarcasm

Quote of the Day by dirtboy

3 Posted on 08/26/2000 20:15:36 PDT by RJayneJ
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To: sarcasm

Quote of the Day by dirtboy

4 Posted on 08/26/2000 20:16:01 PDT by RJayneJ
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To: sarcasm, T'wit, Wallaby, Great Dane, Askel5

sarcasm, I can't wait to hear the name of that company. Another question, why don't they report on the tainted blood from Clinton and Babbitt while they were governors....now, THAT was a scam.

Bloodhounds, Check it OUT!

5 Posted on 08/26/2000 20:21:56 PDT by AuntB
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To: sarcasm

Thanks for the heads up!

6 Posted on 08/26/2000 20:36:17 PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: sarcasm

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7 Posted on 08/27/2000 11:36:47 PDT by Askel5
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To: Askel5

Beauty post A5!. I'll bet you ten that the blood broker involved in this export was our Tommy-boy who bought the Arkansas prison blood!

8 Posted on 08/27/2000 17:00:52 PDT by BigM
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To: Askel5

Thanks for the links. Bookmarked for a later read.

9 Posted on 08/27/2000 19:32:27 PDT by sarcasm
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To: sarcasm, Askel5, T'wit, BigM, Wallaby, Great Dane, Prince Charles, Clive

Late, been traveling BUMP.

10 Posted on 08/28/2000 04:00:23 PDT by Budge
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To: Senator Pardek, A Whitewater Researcher, Uncle Bill, Laz, bmwcycle

Late BUMP

11 Posted on 08/28/2000 04:02:52 PDT by Budge
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To: The Patriot 1776, Boyd, Brian Mosely, Clive, adanaC, Jim N, BLOODHOUNDS

BUMP

12 Posted on 08/28/2000 04:03:35 PDT by Budge
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To: sarcasm

It seems everybody participated in the fraud, they all knew, and they all profitted.........revolting.

13 Posted on 08/28/2000 19:27:14 PDT by Great Dane
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To: Budge

Late, been traveling BUMP.

So, where have you been..... hope you had a good time. :-}

14 Posted on 08/28/2000 19:31:05 PDT by Great Dane
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To: Askel5

Thanks, Five, that's quite a list. I've been browsing through it with satisfaction :-)

We have had stories -- from countries other than South Africa, so they wouldn't show up in this particular search -- about animal blood and blood drawn from corpses finding its way into the international blood trade.

15 Posted on 08/28/2000 20:26:53 PDT by T'wit
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To: Great Dane

"So, where have you been..... hope you had a good time. :-}"

Had to make a business trip to Houston and back home to Galveston. The only fun part was eating at Joe's Crab Shack (I wanted to break the record for eating raw oysters but didn't have time), and walking the beach. =o)

16 Posted on 08/29/2000 05:35:52 PDT by Budge
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To: T'wit

Blood drawn from corpses ... "we'll make more!" must be their motto.

How was your party?

17 Posted on 08/29/2000 11:31:58 PDT by Askel5
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To: Askel5

> How was your party?

Excellent oceanside hotel, fine brunch, good company. Everyone got a chance to meet and hear the candidate, Dan Quiggle, and his family. Hope it gave the candidacy a lift.

18 Posted on 08/29/2000 18:53:23 PDT by T'wit
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To: T'wit

I spoke with the head of the RCMP Blood taskforce today and the blood broker behind this story is our Tommy-boy. It's confirmed.

a bump and a drip!

19 Posted on 08/29/2000 19:21:33 PDT by BigM
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To: BigM

> the blood broker behind this story is our Tommy-boy.

There's a special irony in this. It was the onset of AIDS twenty years ago that shut down blood suppliers in Africa and Haiti and thus opened the door to the boom in prison plasma from Cummins, Angola, etc. It's unbelievable that they'd go back to Africa for supplies now, in the face of the worst AIDS plague on earth.

20 Posted on 08/29/2000 21:20:20 PDT by T'wit
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To: Askel5

Thanks Askel 5 for the postings. We are doing some digging at this end. Lady Cadaver

21 Posted on 08/30/2000 04:03:40 PDT by Factor Fate (Lady Cadaver)
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To: sarcasm

I wonder why they don't name the North American Company

They made that mistake in 1995:

Blood plasma smuggled out of Africa was sold in Europe to Armour Pharmaceutical Co., which made it into products for human use, according to documents obtained from Canadian government officials. Armour, headquartered in Collegeville, has repeatedly said it uses only plasma obtained from its own collection centers in the United States.

Blood Trail 1995: AIDS-Ravaged Plasma "Mislabeled" as from Animals Fractionated for Human Use

22 Posted on 05/08/2001 12:25:22 PDT by BLOODHOUND (askel5)
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To: BLOODHOUND (askel5)

Thanks for the link.

The seem to have been involved in the transmission of AIDS as far back as 19851985.

For some reason I can't link this article - URL:

http://ww1.aegis.org/news/ads/1995/AD951803.html

23 Posted on 05/08/2001 15:22:54 PDT by sarcasm
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To: sarcasm wallaby BigM

Hey thanks, Sarcasm! I'll be doublechecking, but I'm not certain we've covered this in our Armour-related posts on the Trail at FR.

USA Today (10/06/95) P. 3A

Leavitt, Paul; Rivera, Patricia V.; Goodwin, M. David; et al.

Collegeville, Pa.-based Armour Pharmaceutical Co. has agreed to an out-of-court settlement with three of six Canadian hemophiliacs who claim they were infected with HIV from tainted blood products, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Each of the three plaintiffs will receive $1.55 million. Documents presented as evidence at a government hearing in Toronto reveal that Armour continued to sell its blood-clotting product Factorate until 1987, even though it knew 10 years ago that its heat-treating process did not destroy HIV.

Related Stories: Wall Street Journal (10/06) P. B7;
Washington Post (10/06) P. A2;
New York Times (10/06) P. A17

24 Posted on 05/08/2001 15:27:30 PDT by BLOODHOUND (askel5)
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To: BLOODHOUNDs adanaC Acorn Great Dane CholeraJoe Budge T'wit

Just a bump.

25 Posted on 05/08/2001 15:28:57 PDT by BLOODHOUND (askel5)
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To: BLOODHOUND (askel5)

A bump and a drip!

26 Posted on 05/08/2001 19:54:12 PDT by BigM
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To: sarcasm

Bookmark for further study of links.

27 Posted on 05/08/2001 21:08:35 PDT by Dec31,1999
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To: BigM, Askel5, T'wit All

Please note new e-mail.

28 Posted on 05/08/2001 21:54:14 PDT by Budge (budgera@cablelynx.com)
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To: Budge

Duly noted ... trust all is well, Budge. Perhaps we'll see YOU in Arkansas next year!

29 Posted on 05/08/2001 22:10:36 PDT by Askel5
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To: Askel5

If I'm alive, and I da_n well plan on being, you better bet we'll meet!

30 Posted on 05/09/2001 22:06:51 PDT by Budge
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