Government blood scandal role probe
Updated on 24 May 2007
An independent inquiry into the deaths of nearly 2,000 haemophiliacs who were exposed to HIV or hepatitis C through contaminated blood is to address claims that the Government withheld crucial documents.
It has been claimed that the Department of Health has obstructed the inquiry by refusing to release key documents containing information on how the patients were infected through NHS treatments.
According to Jenny Willcott, Liberal Democrat MP for Cardiff Central, the DoH has released just 2% of the total documents they hold.
She said: "This is a shameful obstruction of justice. The Government is using every trick in the book to keep hidden the full facts of how thousands of haemophiliacs came to be infected with Hepatitis C and HIV under the NHS."
This week, public health minister Caroline Flint said the DoH had reviewed its documents in relation to the inquiry.
She said the Government had "great sympathy" for those who had been infected by Hepatitis C, adding the Government of the time had acted in good faith, relying on the information available at that point. But she said the review "concludes that the documents provide no new information and support the view in the 1970s and early 1980s that NANBH (hepatitis C) was a mild disease, a view widely shared at the time."
A DoH spokesman said there were around 4,000 remaining papers which were being prepared for release in monthly batches under the Freedom of Information Act, but under this law some papers may still be withheld.
Roddy Morrison, chairman of the Haemophilia Society said: "Although we are grateful for the release of this review, it is still not enough.
"The documents discussed in this review do not cover HIV contamination at all and only look at hepatitis C contamination up to 1985. "
Former Solicitor General Lord Archer of Sandwell is heading the public inquiry, which is due to resume on Thursday.
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