Britain Swapped To ‘'Higher Risk' US Blood Products To Save Money, Minutes Suggest

The British government was willing to risk infecting NHS patients to get "lower-priced" blood products, according to a document that campaigners claim proves state and corporate guilt in one of the country's worst ever scandals.

- Daniel Boffey

A public inquiry into the deaths of an estimated 2,900 people infected with conditions such as HIV and hepatitis will publish its final report in May, four decades after the NHS started prescribing blood and blood products - including from drug users, prisoners and sex workers - sourced from the US.

Within the thousands of documents disclosed to the inquiry, internal company minutes have emerged that campaigners say provide the final compelling piece of evidence of the commercial greed and state negligence that destroyed thousands of lives.

In November 1976, Immuno AG, an Austrian company that was a major supplier to the Department of Health, was seeking a licence change to allow it to supply a blood product from those paid to donate in the US rather than from donors without a financial incentive in Europe.

According to the minutes of a meeting of medics in the company, it had been "proven" that there was a "significantly higher hepatitis risk" from a concentrate known as Kryobulin 2 made from US plasma compared with that from Austria and Germany.

The company had concluded there was a "preference" in Britain for the cheaper US option. The memo of the meeting said: "Kryobulin 2 will be significantly cheaper than Kryobulin 1 because the British market will accept a higher risk of hepatitis for a lower-priced product. In the longterm, Kryobulin 1 will disappear from the British market."

A Granada World in Action documentary had already reported a year earlier that drug users and people living on the streets in the US were being paid to give blood and that the donors were not consistently honest about their lifestyles and health.