Blood service collected donations from UK prisons despite infection risk warnings, documents to inquiry show
Documents submitted to the Infected Blood Inquiry reveal the blood service in the UK was taking donations from British prisons up until the late 1980s, despite warnings to end the practice.
It is evidence of how unsafe, by today’s standards, the UK blood supply was until the early 1990s when testing for life-threatening viruses like hepatitis C and HIV became available.
Much of the inquiry has focused on haemophiliacs, the group harmed most in the infection scandal due to blood products imported from the US made from contaminated blood from paying donors including those in jail.
But the vast majority of people infected with hepatitis C in the UK acquired their infection via blood transfusions in the NHS for things like routine surgery, cancer treatment or following childbirth.
Blood given to this silent majority in the infected blood scandal was sourced almost exclusively from donors in Britain.
“I felt so guilty I passed it on,” says Daphne Whitehorn.
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She contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion she received during a kidney transplant in 1971.
“But I didn’t know I could pass it on because I was never told anything about it,” she says.
Daphne Whitehorn
Her daughter Janice tested positive for the virus in 2019, probably infected when she was born. Neither knew they had the infection for decades.
Symptoms can be mild at first, many people naturally clear the virus and treatments introduced in the last decade can cure most people of their infection without serious side-effects.
But chronic infection can cause severe liver damage, liver failure and liver cancer.
The Whitehorns and thousands of other victims of the scandal are looking to the Infected Blood Inquiry for answers.
Key among them, why so many people were infected with hepatitis C.
There are no precise numbers, many of the records of donors, recipients and procedures have been lost or destroyed.
But statistical experts for the inquiry estimate around 27,000 people may have been infected with hepatitis C via transfusions. Most have subsequently died of other causes but they calculate around 1,600 have died so far from causes related directly to their hepatitis C infection.
The inquiry has heard how more could have been done to keep viruses like hepatitis out of the blood supply.
Janice Whitehorn tested positive for the virus in 2019
Documents show how calls to end the practice of taking donations from the prison population were slow to be heeded.
The inquiry was shown evidence that in 1973 rates of hepatitis viruses were found to be fives times higher in prisoners than the general population.
While this led to many regional blood services to stop taking donations from prisons, others continued. The last prison donation took place in 1987.
But the inquiry is expected to consider far wider failings too.
Like why, when testing for HIV for and then Hepatitis C became available, was the blood service slow to adopt using them. Also why infected frozen stocks of blood taken before Hepatitis C testing was introduced were not retrospectively tested before being given to patients in the early 1990s.
In addition, victims of the scandal want to know why it took four years for the Department of Health to approve a “look-back” exercise to identify those who may have been infected due to a blood transfusion. Also why that exercise left so many still unaware they had been infected.
A photo wall of victims of the scandal
“We’re very sorry for the parts that we played in the past,” says Dr Gail Miflin, chief medical officer of the NHS Blood and Transplant Service.
“Listening to the stories of those infected and affected, they are dreadful stories.
“My job as chief medical officer is to ensure that the blood supply today is safe and that people who need a transfusion today, get blood that comes from one of the safest blood services in the world.”
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And much has changed.
Donors today are screened for lifestyle factors and travel history that might have put them at risk of blood-borne infections.
Each donation is also tested for a number of infections including HIV and hepatitis C, and a sample of each donation is archived for three years in case re-testing is required.
The Infected Blood Inquiry is due to publish its final report on 20 May.
If you think you may have been at risk of hepatitis C infection, free testing is available in England: https://hepctest.nhs.uk/ in Wales: https://www.shwales.online/wales-sti-testing-kit-test-and-post.html In Scotland you will need to speak to your GP.
A workman saved a seven-year-old boy from a burning car in the aftermath of a deadly crash caused by a suicidal ex-pilot, an inquest has heard.
The schoolboy’s rescue came following the collision on the M6, which killed former RAF man Richard Woods and four others, in October last year.
Last week a coroner ruled that Woods, 40, took his own life by deliberately driving his Skoda the wrong way down the motorway while drunk and hitting a Toyota Yaris head-on.
The driver of the Toyota, Jaroslaw Rossa, 42, was also killed, along with his two sons, Filip, 15, and Dominic, seven, and his partner Jade McEnroe, 33.
Cockermouth Coroner’s Court heard on Thursday that Ms McEnroe’s son was also in the car but survived after workman Gavin Walsh came to his rescue at the scene, which was near Tebay services in Cumbria.
In a statement to the inquest, Mr Walsh said he was a passenger in a transit van travelling to Scotland when he witnessed the crash.
He jumped out of the vehicle and used a jack to smash the rear windscreen of the Toyota and pulled the boy out of the burning vehicle.
Mr Walsh said: “We really did try, I can assure everyone we did our best. We only had minimal time.
“I saved a life that day and I hope never to witness anything like that again.”
He added that he has never stopped thinking about the boy, and said: “I hope we will meet again one day and I will give you a massive hug.”
At the time, the family were returning to Glasgow from a trip to Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire.
The inquest heard that Wood, who was travelling at a speed of at least 65mph, would have been charged with manslaughter had he survived.
Recording conclusions of unlawful killing, Cumbria assistant coroner Margaret Taylor said: “I found that Jaroslaw, Jade, Filip and Dominic died as a consequence of the unlawful acts of another driver.”
The inquest heard how Mr Woods, from Cambridgeshire, had served a distinguished 14-year career in the RAF and was a flight instructor for BAE Systems at the time of his death.
Jade McEnroe. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
Dominic and Filip. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
In Ms Taylor’s record of inquest, Mr Woods was said to have been experiencing “a number of stressors in his life” and had a “history of harmful use of alcohol”.
Following the crash, he was found to be nearly four times over the legal drink-drive limit and a two-thirds empty bottle of gin was found in his car.
On the day of his death, concerns had been raised over his behaviour at a work conference near Preston in Lancashire.
Mr Woods failed to return to his seat after lunch and was later spotted driving erratically and swerving across three northbound carriageway lanes on the M6.
After pulling onto the hard shoulder, he then proceeded to U-turn and drove southward on lane three.
Filip, Dominic and Jaroslaw Rossa. Pic: Cumbria Constabulary
Detective Sergeant Deborah Story, from Cumbria Police, told the inquest that Mr Woods would have been prosecuted on four counts of manslaughter had he lived.
She said hypothetical charges of murder were considered by detectives but not thought appropriate because of a lack of information that Mr Woods knew the family or anything that provided a link between them.
Ms McEnroe’s parents, Marie McEnroe and George McNellis, told the coroner they thought it was “murder”.
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A statement from the mother of Filip and Dominic, and the ex-wife of Mr Rossa, Kamila, was read out at the inquest.
She said Mr Rossa, known as Jarek, was born in Poland where they became a couple and went on to have three boys.
He loved playing computer games and had “lots of friends”, she said, and worked at the Wagamama restaurant in Silverburn, Glasgow.
She said she was “devastated” over the deaths, adding: “Our lives will never be the same.
“I am heartbroken at the passing of my beloved angels Filip and Dominic.”
Marie McEnroe said her daughter, a spa therapist, had been in a relationship with Mr Rossa for about two-and-a-half years.
She said Jade had been a “brilliant mother” to her only child, was “really happy” with Mr Rossa and it was “lovely chaos” when all the boys were playing together.
Ms McEnroe added: “Life changed forever that day”.
Ms Taylor praised the “selfless acts of bravery” from those in the aftermath of the collision, including Mr Walsh, who she said went towards the burning car “without hesitation for his own safety”.
The coroner added: “Without his swift response, Jade’s child would also have perished.”
Addressing the bereaved family members, she said: “Your loss is unimaginable but you have conducted yourself with dignity and I thank you for that. I wish you strength for the future.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
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