Scandal in the United Kingdom: hundreds of children received contaminated blood for wild trials

Research before the health of patients… this seems to be the only motivation of doctors who conducted clinical tests involving several hundred people for more than 15 years, most of whom found themselves infected with hepatitis C and HIV.

Wild clinical trials with contaminated products

In the 1970s and 1980s, these clinical trials involved children suffering from blood clotting disorders (hemophilia), although families often did not consent to their participation. According to documents found by the BBC, doctors at hemophilia centers across the country were using blood products even though they were widely known to be susceptible to contamination.

The use of these products was linked to the shortage of blood which had led the country to import products from the United States. To meet demand, the country authorized high-risk donors such as prisoners and drug addicts. Many of these samples were infected with potentially deadly viruses, including hepatitis C – which attacks the liver, causing cirrhosis and cancer – and HIV. A blood product, known as Factor VIII, has been shown to be very effective in stopping bleeding, but it is also widely known to be contaminated with viruses.

Children considered laboratory rats

The BBC investigation and testimony showed that some children were deliberately given a blood product – which their doctor knew could have infected them – so they could be enrolled in a clinical trial. In the case of Luke O’Shea-Phillips infected with hepatitis C, the doctor wanted to know how likely patients were to contract illnesses caused by a new version of heat-treated factor VIII. Children were the main victims because doctors were looking for “patients who had never been treated before”, “virgin haemophiliacs”.

“I was a guinea pig in clinical trials that could have killed me“, Luke O’Shea told the BBC. “There is no other way to explain it: my treatment was changed so that I could participate in clinical trials. This change in medication gave me a deadly disease – hepatitis C – and yet my mother never found out about it.”.

In Hampshire, a wild “in-depth” study of disabled and haemophiliac children attending Treloar’s College led to a terrible outcome: of the 122 pupils enrolled between 1974 and 1987, 75 have now died as a result of infection with haemophilia. HIV or hepatitis C.

This scandal is reminiscent of that of contaminated blood in France. It is estimated that between 1984 and 1985, 2,000 hemophiliacs contracted HIV or hepatitis C following transfusions of contaminated blood. The government had been accused of not having put in place sufficient tests on donors and the blood collected. This first health scandal in France had an epilogue in 2003, 15 years after the first complaints.