What is the contaminated blood scandal?

The Factor 8 Scandal, Contaminated Blood Scandal or Infected Blood Scandal is the event of thousands of people in the UK (mostly Haemophiliacs) being infected with Hepatitis C (HCV) or HCV & HIV (co-infected) by a pharmaceutical product known as Factor VIII Concentrate. Some people with a less common form of Haemophilia, Haemophilia B, were infected via Factor IX concentrate.

The Infected Blood Inquiry has determined that around 1,250 people were infected with both HIV & HCV and 2,400 – 5,000 people were infected with HCV (but not HIV) though these blood products. Every person infected with HIV was also infected with HCV because every bottle of Factor VIII & Factor IX was infected with HCV.

American Factor VIII was more likely to also be infected with HIV because commercial manufacturers used larger plasma pools, from higher risk sources, and because HIV became established in USA populations before the UK.

Despite warnings against their use, dating back to at least the 1950s, due to the risk of hepatitis infection, Factor VIII & IX Concentrates first began to be used at scale in the UK from the early 1970s.

Throughout the 1970’s, Factor concentrates began to be used more often and by the late 1970’s they had become the most commonly prescribed treatment for Haemophilia in the UK. Before this time, the previously most prescribed treatment was Cryoprecipitate (Cryo) which was safer because each unit was derived from the blood-plasma of just 1 voluntary donor.

You can read more about why Factor VIII & IX Concentrates were so much more dangerous that Cryo or a blood transfusion here.

Factor concentrate products were extremely dangerous because they were created by mixing together the plasma donations of tens of thousands of people who, in the case of imported products, were often very high risk. Many Plasma donors in the United States were paid for their plasma (providing a motivation to lie during screening questions) and fell into high-risk groups for viral risk which included Serving Prisoners, Prostitutes, IV Drug Users, Homosexuals and others.

Manufacturers also paid for and imported plasma from third-world countries located in South America and Africa. Some manufacturers even used left-over plasma they had collected specifically from those who had hepatitis (for use in the manufacture of Hepatitis B vaccine) to create Factor VIII.

During the 1980’s most of England’s Factor VIII supply was being imported from overseas pharmaceutical companies. Ministers argued this was because the country had not honoured a commitment made by David Owen in 1975 to become self-sufficient in Factor VIII. However, this argument is largely a red herring because no dangerous Factor VIII should have been in use at all. Decision-makers and manufacturers had chosen not to act upon the many warnings about the use of these products.

Although self-sufficiency in non-heat treated Factor VIII would have dramatically reduced the scale of HIV infection, it would probably have had little effect in terms of Hepatitis. This is because UK Factor VIII was still being made from large plasma-pools and not heat-treated.

Despite the failure of the UK to become self-sufficient in its Factor VIII, the overriding problem had been evident much earlier. Factor VIII concentrates made from large plasma pools, which had not been subject to viral inactivation, should never have been given to patients in the UK due to the hepatitis risk which was known about since at least the 1950s.

Other countries, for example Finland, never allowed these products to be used precisely because of the hepatitis risk.

Consistently, we see countries who chose not to take the irresponsible decision to allow untreated concentrates to be used, were able to avoid HIV infection almost entirely and also significantly reduced hepatitis infections.

By 1996, the majority of Haemophiliacs in the UK who had been infected with both HIV & HCV were dead. Those infected with HIV had also endured the most brutal period of AIDS stigma.

The truth about the infected blood scandal is:

• It was avoidable.

• It was foreseeable.

• It could and should have been prevented.

Calls for a Public Inquiry to examine events were steadfastly refused for decades. Margaret Thatcher had denied an investigation and so had every subsequent Government. However, in 2017 facing campaign, legal and political pressure, Theresa May announced that an Inquiry would be held.

You can find the Inquiry’s latest statistics on the infected blood scandal here.