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The Northern Echo
3 November 2000
Legal aid victory for HIV haemophiliac campaigners
by Neil Morrison
A HAEMOPHILIAC campaigning for a public inquiry into contaminated blood
has won legal aid to consult a barrister in an attempt to bring the
Government to court.
Solicitors acting for the 42-year-old have concluded that there is
evidence that haemophiliacs were deliberately misled when they accepted
a compensation pay-out after being infected with HIV.
Now they are to consult a leading QC within the next few weeks over
taking legal action to overturn a waiver signed at the time of the
settlement.
The Newcastle haemophiliac, who asked not to be named, said: "They knew
we were a group of very scared and vulnerable people and we thought we
had only a few years to live."
The 1990 pay-outs were made on condition the sufferers signed an
undertaking not to take any legal action against the Department of
Health or health authorities over the spread of hepatitis viruses. Tests
later showed that 95 per cent of the 95 haemophiliacs in the North-East
who had been infected with HIV had also contracted the potentially
lethal hepatitis C virus.
The tests had been available in the 1980s but were only introduced in
the UK after the HIV settlement had been made.
One of the 18 surviving HIV-infected haemophiliacs in the region died on
Tuesday of liver failure, brought on by hepatitis C.
In 1996, then health minister John Horam said in a letter to Newcastle
MP Jim Cousins that at the time of the HIV settlement it was known that
some haemophilia patients had already died of hepatitis C.
Congrats! go get 'em! We'll find the prison blood link to Scotland yet!
a bump and a drip!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
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