Global pharmaceutical firms that supplied products involved in the contaminated blood scandal face calls this weekend to foot part of the estimated £10bn compensation bill. MPs and campaigners want the government to pursue action against drug firms that to date have not paid any compensation in the UK. Their products were contaminated with viruses, including HIV and hepatitis C.
The official inquiry by Sir Brian Langstaff concluded the pharmaceutical industry’s contaminated product manufactured by subsidiaries of Bayer, Baxter and other drug groups to treat haemophilia did not contain adequate warnings and should never have been licensed. Diana Johnson, the Labour MP and the chair of all-party parliamentary group on haemophilia and contaminated blood, said: “The pharmaceutical companies need to apologise and there needs to be a claim against them for some of this money.” Johnson said claimants in other countries had been given payouts of hundreds of millions of pounds and it was “outrageous” similar payments had not been made in the UK.
The government has set out details on the infected blood compensation scheme , with payments to victims of up to £2,735,000. View image in fullscreen MP Diana Johnson addresses campaigners in London before the publication of the inquiry report into the scandal. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA The drug companies need to apologise and help pay some of this money Diana Johnson MP About 3,000 people died and 30,000 were infected after being.
