For decades, British governments concealed responsibility for HIV infections among hemophiliacs. Now Prime Minister Sunak speaks of a “disgrace to the British state”. The scandal is not an isolated case.
For the victims of the biggest medical scandal in British history and their families, it was a moment of satisfaction after decades of struggle. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologized on Monday and spoke of a “day of shame for the British state”. On Tuesday, the government presented a package to compensate victims worth around 10 billion pounds (11.6 billion francs).
Late enlightenment
The government promised that the funds would be paid out quickly. And yet the satisfaction comes very late – too late for many victims. Around 30,000 people, many of whom suffered from hemophilia, received contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s and became infected with HIV or hepatitis. More than 3,000 people died because of the infection – every week two more people die from the long-term effects of their infection.
Contaminated blood supplies were also used in other countries at the time. But Germany, Switzerland and Japan were already investigating the incidents in the early 1990s, and in France a government member was convicted after a trial in 1999. Only in Great Britain did those responsible for the National Health Service (NHS) and the government itself try to sweep their misdeeds under the carpet more than two decades later.
In a more than 2,500-page investigative report, former judge Brian Langstaff examines the events. His findings have upset the British public. Langstaff accuses those responsible for the NHS of turning a blind eye to the risks of the canned blood imported from abroad. Some of the blood came from American drug addicts and prison inmates who were paid for their donations. It did not meet British safety standards.
Experiments in the boys’ boarding school
The activities of doctors at a boarding school in Hampshire, where boys received blood supplies without their parents’ consent, seem downright cynical. According to Langstaff, the evidence showed that those responsible were aware of the risks of HIV infection, but continued the program for research purposes. Three quarters of the infected boys did not survive the experimental treatment.
Langstaff’s report also traces how successive governments and those responsible for the NHS tried to cover up their failings. Within the Ministry of Health, documents were repeatedly destroyed that cast a bad light on politicians and officials.
According to the report, several experts warned early on about the risks of blood products without the administration taking any action. The truth was concealed. For decades, ministers spread untrue assurances that patients received the best medical treatment. Blood tests were introduced at the earliest possible date.
Obfuscate and delay
According to Langstaff, the scandal reveals a “subtle, pervasive and frightening abuse of the trust” that the population places in authorities such as the state or the medical profession. This finding is not new. In fact, similar cases have become more frequent in the recent past. In an editorial, the Times criticizes the “incompetence of the British state,” which repeatedly leads to scandals. These would be accompanied by obfuscation and delay tactics by the powerful – at the expense of the claims of the powerless to transparency and justice.
At the beginning of the year, the legal scandal involving employees of the British post office made headlines. The accounting records of many post offices showed major deficits due to faulty software. Instead of admitting the error, those responsible at the post office accused the innocent employees of theft and drove them into ruin.
Andy Burnham, the Labor mayor of Manchester, recently said in an interview with journalists that for him the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 was symptomatic of the arrogance of the British power elite. At that time, 97 people were killed in a crowd in the stands of a football stadium in Sheffield. According to Burnham, it was most convenient for the authorities to pin the blame on Liverpool fans. It was only 27 years later that an investigation came to the conclusion that the tragedy was caused by police mistakes and not – as had been claimed for years – the behavior of the fans.
In response to the blood bank scandal, Burnham is now calling for charges against British ministries for “institutional manslaughter”. However, it is questionable whether the scandal will have legal repercussions. The Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage explained in his program on the TV channel “GB News” that what all British scandals have in common is that no one is ever held responsible. While Farage once saw the source of all evil in Brussels, he now sets his sights on London: “Something is seriously rotten at the heart of the British state.”