2024-04-23 09:19:00
The world awaits the results of investigations into the tainted blood scandal, which killed around 30,000 citizens in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s. What is the story of the greatest therapeutic disaster in the history of the National Health Service British?
These documents reveal a secret world of dangerous clinical testing involving children in the UK, where doctors prioritized research goals over patients’ needs.
These tests continued for over 15 years and involved hundreds of people, most of whom were infected with hepatitis C and HIV.
One of the surviving patients told the BBC he was treated like a “guinea pig” in the laboratories.
The trials included children with blood clotting disorders, whose families often did not accept their participation. The majority of children registered to participate in these experiments died.
My story
Lee’s son, Dennis, was diagnosed with hemophilia at six months old. In 1985, when he was just four years old, he tested positive for HIV following receiving contaminated blood products and died at age 10.
Due to the “stigma” associated with HIV at that time, the child’s life was difficult, as the press reported on him as an unwanted child at school. Other parents avoided the family, some even telling Denise that her son had to die. The family was forced to leave their home in Nilsi and move to another area.
The Vaghela brothers
Suresh Vaghela and his brother Praful were hemophiliacs. When they were offered a new treatment in 1970, they were told it would “dramatically improve their lives”, without having any idea of its true impact. The shocking surprise happened in 1985 following Suresh was diagnosed with HIV.
“They told me, ‘Go home. Tell your family. You only have three months. Get ready,'” Suresh recalls.
Speaking to the inquiry committee, Suresh highlighted the stigma he faced: “It is worse in Indian society where illness is seen as karma (a punishment for what you have done in a lifetime anterior). »
Of the 1,200 people infected with HIV through contaminated blood, nearly 1,000 have already died, including Praful, who died in 1995 at the age of 33.
Mother of six children
In a similar case, Deena Peacock, a mother of six from Warrington, underwent blood transfusions in the early 1980s following giving birth to her first two children.
For 35 years, she mightn’t understand why she constantly felt so tired, sick and depressed. She was not diagnosed with hepatitis C until 2017.
In addition to her anger that she might die, she felt terrible that her children might also be infected.
As for Mark Ward, he was just 14 years old in 1984 when a doctor at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London, told him he was infected with HIV.
He vividly remembers the doctor telling him, “If you’re lucky, you’re only regarding two years old, but you might not live long enough to graduate.” »
“When you learn that at 14, what do you do? » asks Mark. “You continue your studies, but your whole life changes, because they told me: that’s it, you’re going to die of AIDS. .”
Mark confirms that his health is rapidly deteriorating and that he has lost many friends. He adds: “People leave me at a rate of two a week, I lose a friend and the specter of death draws closer to me. My quest for justice is what gives me strength now.
Carly’s father, Keith Francis, also contracted hepatitis C from contaminated blood products at the time and committed suicide in 2014.
His daughter, Carly, from Leighton Buzzard, says he had a “complete distrust of the system” following his injury.
Keith had two brothers who also suffered from hemophilia and, like Keith, received contaminated blood. One of them contracted hepatitis C, while the other contracted HIV and later died from his infection.
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