POLITICIANS, doctors and the NHS conducted a "subtle, pervasive and chilling" cover-up of the "worst ever" health scandal which saw more than 30,000 people infected with incurable blood diseases, a landmark inquiry has ruled. They lied for years about the risks of taking blood from prisoners and drug addicts as patients were killed or struck down by HIV and hepatitis due to medical blunders . More than 3,000 people have died after being infected with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1970s and 1980s after receiving transfusions or blood products from the NHS.
This afternoon, Rishi Sunak will apologise to the thousands of victims of the scandal, which the Infected Blood Inquiry has found could and should have been avoided. In a damning seven-volume investigation into what happened, Chair of the Inquiry Sir Brian Langstaff concludes that those in positions of power in Government and the health service deliberately misled the public. Patients with blood disorders like haemophilia were given treatments made from the blood of prisoners and drug addicts for years after experts realised it was dangerous.
Convicts in the US were given cash to donate but had high rates of deadly hepatitis C and HIV, with just a fraction of a millilitre of blood enough to infect someone. Gung-ho doctors in Britain brushed the risks under the carpet and did not tell patients about them, lied to them, or even injected them without telling them. Many of the victims were children who later died of AIDS in their t.
