Allan ArchiveBy Chloe Hayward and Hugh PymHealth producer and health editor, BBC NewsThe true scale of the number of medical trials using infected blood products on children in the 1970s and 80s has been revealed by documents seen by BBC News.They reveal a secret world of unsafe clinical testing involving children in the UK, as doctors placed research goals ahead of patients’ needs.They continued for more than 15 years, involved hundreds of people, and infected most with hepatitis C and HIV.One surviving patient told the BBC he was treated like a “guinea pig”.The trials involved children with blood clotting disorders, when families had often not consented to them taking part. The majority of the children who enrolled are now dead. Documents also show that doctors in haemophilia centres across the country used blood products, even though they were widely known as likely to be contaminated.A shortage of blood products in the UK in the 1970s and 80s meant they were imported from the US. High-risk donors such as prisoners and drug addicts provided the plasma for the treatments that were infected with potentially fatal viruses including hepatitis C – which attacks the liver resulting in cirrhosis and cancer – and HIV. One blood product, known as Factor VIII, was seen to be highly effective for stopping bleeding but also widely known to be contaminated with viruses. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnAllan ArchiveBy Chloe Hayward and Hugh PymHealth producer and health editor, BBC NewsThe true scale of the number of medical trials using infected blood products on children in the 1970s and 80s has been revealed by documents seen by BBC News.They reveal a secret world of unsafe clinical testing involving children in the UK, as doctors placed research goals ahead of patients’ needs.They continued for more than 15 years, involved hundreds of people, and infected most with hepatitis C and HIV.One surviving patient told the BBC he was treated like a “guinea pig”.The trials involved children with blood clotting disorders, when families had often not consented to them taking part. The majority of the children who enrolled are now dead. Documents also show that doctors in haemophilia centres across the country used blood products, even though they were widely known as likely to be contaminated.A shortage of blood products in the UK in the 1970s and 80s meant they were imported from the US. High-risk donors such as prisoners and drug addicts provided the plasma for the treatments that were infected with potentially fatal viruses including hepatitis C – which attacks the liver resulting in cirrhosis and cancer – and HIV. One blood product, known as Factor VIII, was seen to be highly effective for stopping bleeding but also widely known to be contaminated with viruses. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
