"JOHN" <john@btinternet.com> wrote in message
Inquiry finds the truth on shredding was withheld after infected transfusions killed 1,700
patients
Jo Revill, Whitehall editor
Sunday May 20, 2007
The Observer
An independent public inquiry into how thousands of haemophiliacs contracted HIV or hepatitis C
from contaminated blood discovered last night that Downing Street is withholding crucial
information about how hundreds of relevant documents were shredded.
More than 1,700 patients died and many more are now terminally ill as a result of one of the
biggest medical disasters of recent times, when haemophiliacs were given infected blood
clotting products during the late Seventies and early Eighties. The products came from American
prisoners who were allowed to sell their blood even though there were fears about the risks of
contamination.
But it has since emerged that many of the files detailing the scandal were shredded by civil
servants in the Nineties. This week, the second hearing of the contaminated blood inquiry,
chaired by the former Solicitor-General, Lord Archer of Sandwell, will ask why the results of
an internal inquiry into the destruction of crucial files are being withheld.
Jenny Willott, Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, has discovered that Downing Street is
holding back the report, carried out by the Department of Health in 2000, when Alan Milburn was
Health Secretary. Some of the destroyed documents detailed meetings between the blood
transfusion service, health boards, government officials and consultants during the Seventies
and Eighties. The records also contained information on when precisely the government became
aware of the risks from imported blood and what measures were taken to warn patients.
The Haemophilia Society said last night that Downing Street's decision was 'incomprehensible,
given the public interest'. In 1989, the society brought legal action on behalf of thousands of
patients who had become infected with HIV after being given the clotting product Factor 8.
Haemophilia is a rare hereditary condition in which the blood does not clot properly. British
doctors used the American products despite some senior scientists knowing that there was a
risk. Compensation was then agreed with the Tory government in 1990 and thousands of patients
received one-off payments of between £21,000 and £80,000.
However, it then transpired that hundreds of documents relating to the case were shredded,
allegedly by accident, by junior civil servants. It is now known that there were two separate
instances of documents being destroyed, or mislaid, at some point between 1990 and 1998. Some
copies of documents had been made by a solicitor's firm, and these were returned to the
government, but others are thought to have been lost forever. The total number of destroyed
documents is not known. In 2000, the Department of Health held the audit but it was never
published.
An email from the Department of Health passed to The Observer revealed that an official has
confirmed that the audit has been withheld at the request of no 10. Yesterday, it remained
unclear why Downing Street had blocked moves to put it into the public domain. The Observer was
still awaiting a reply last night from No 10 officials about the reasons for the lack of
disclosure.
Willott said: 'We discovered that this internal audit had happened through the Freedom of
Information Act, and asked to see a copy of it. We now find that No 10 have withheld it. That
raises the very big question about whether there is incriminating evidence in there.
'We were always told that the documents were shredded by mistake by a junior civil servant. It
is very important that we know because it's hard to hold an inquiry when you are not getting
the full picture. There are thousands of people living with the results of this terrible
disaster who deserve to know the truth.'
One of them is Gareth Lewis, chairman of the campaign group Tainted Blood, and a trustee of the
society, who became infected with HIV and Hepatitis C in 1984.
'I'm 48 years old, and I've lived with this nightmare for more than two decades,' he said. 'I
find it very hard to understand why a government minister would not want to know the whole
truth about this, and not want us to know. I have been to 98 funerals of haemophiliacs who have
died as a result of receiving contaminated blood. We really owe it to them to be open and
honest about what went wrong.'
