Score another one for Big Pharma.

Shit.

http://www.taintedblood.info/timeline.php?mode=latest&launch=true

THESTAR.com

Accused in tainted blood trial exonerated

Victims are shocked Superior Court judge found no one to blame

Oct 02, 2007 04:30 AM

Peter Small
Tracy Huffman
Staff Reporters

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/262563

After more than two decades, a 20-month trial and 1,000 exhibits, a judge exonerated four doctors and a U.S. pharmaceutical company of criminal charges in one of Canada's worst public health disasters.

While more than 1,000 Canadians became infected with HIV and another 20,000 contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood products in the mid-1980s, yesterday's acquittals mean no one has been found criminally responsible in the tragedy.

Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto ruled yesterday that New Jersey-based Armour Pharmaceutical Co. and the four doctors, including a former top Canadian Red Cross official, behaved responsibly in distributing HT Factorate.

"There was no conduct that showed wanton and reckless disregard. There was no marked departure from the standard of a reasonable person," she told a packed University Ave. courtroom. "On the contrary, the conduct examined in detail for over 1 1/2years confirms reasonable, responsible and professional actions and responses during a difficult time.

"The allegations of criminal conduct on the part of these men and this corporation were not only unsupported by the evidence, they were disproved," she said. "The events here were tragic. However, to assign blame where none exists is to compound the tragedy."

All four doctors and Armour were charged with criminal negligence and endangering the public for allegedly allowing Armour's blood-clotting product, infected with HIV, to be given to hemophilia patients, thus putting the public at risk of contracting the deadly virus.

The Red Cross and Dr. Roger Perrault, 71, its former director of blood transfusion, were also charged with not screening donors for contaminated blood. As well, Armour was charged with failing to notify the federal Health Department of problems or suspected problems with its blood product.

Acquitted were Perrault, 71; Dr. Donald Wark Boucher, 66; Dr. John Furesz, 79, who worked for Health Canada's bureau of biologics; Armour Pharmaceutical, which manufactured HT Factorate; and one of its former vice-presidents, Dr. Michael Rodell, 75, of Pennsylvania, who was responsible for the company's blood products.

The trial focused on four hemophiliacs – three who have died – and about 60 others allegedly exposed to the HIV-virus. The victims of common nuisance represented people living in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and Alberta.

While the doctors showed little outward reaction to their acquittal, some tainted-blood victims and their families in the courtroom shook their heads or wept quietly.

John Plater, of the Canadian Hemophilia Society, who contracted HIV and hepatitis C through tainted blood in the 1980s, said he can't understand how the judge could say they did a good job.

"What has been suggested here today is that the behaviour of the gentlemen involved and the company involved shouldhow be lauded, that they were doing a wonderful job," Plater said. "Well, no one in the history of examining what happened here has ever suggested that they did a good job."

James Kreppner, a hemophiliac infected with HIV and hepatitis C in the 1980s, sat through much of the trial. He said he was disappointed that a defence "dream team" had secured such complete vindication.

"I'm not out for revenge, but I want the truth told."

In the trial, Crown counsel Michael Bernstein alleged the defendants sacrificed the health of Canadians. As many as 3,0000 Canadians are estimated to have died from receiving tainted blood.

But defence lawyers argued officials acted reasonably, based on scientific knowledge of HIV in the 1980s.Yesterday, Eddie Greenspan, lawyer for Perrault, said they had expected this verdict.

"When you read this judgment, there are enormous comments about his innocence, about his due diligence, about the care and consideration that he took."

This isn't the end of criminal proceedings in the tainted blood tragedy. Perrault also faces six counts of common nuisance in endangering the public for allegedly failing to properly screen donors, implement testing for blood-borne viruses and warning the public of danger regarding both hepatitis C and HIV.

That trial is to begin this year in Hamilton, where victims have voiced frustration with the slow pace of justice and expressed fears Perrault may be acquitted.

In his 1997 report on the country's tainted blood scandal, Justice Horace Krever strongly criticized Canada's reaction to the AIDS crisis. Krever said the decision by Red Cross officials to exhaust their supply of untreated blood products before switching fully to safe heat-treated concentrates in 1985 was especially careless. In the wake of Krever's report, responsibility for Canada's blood supply for all provinces, except Quebec, was transferred to Canadian Blood Services.

High court appeal urged

OTTAWA–An acquittal in yesterday's tainted-blood trial should be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court to test the laws that protect Canada's blood supply and to ensure the adequacy of federal reforms made in the wake of the public health scandal, a former federal health minister says.

Why did the battle take so long?

It's not surprising the biggest public health disaster in Canadian history would also spawn one of the longest legal battles for account- ability, a fight that isn't over.

Even though former Canadian Red Cross director Roger Perrault and four co-accused were acquitted yesterday by a Toronto judge, Perrault still faces a criminal trial in Hamilton. The Crown could also appeal yesterday's verdict.

But criminal prosecutions are just one component of a quest for justice by tainted blood victims that began approximately 17 years ago.

Before the RCMP laid criminal charges in 2002, there was a public inquiry headed by retired justice Horace Krever and a series of class action lawsuits, which were delayed by legal challenges.

Here are some of the reasons the process has taken so long:

Bureaucratic delays: These slowed the development of a safe blood supply and the search for what went wrong. A program for testing donated blood for HIV, for example, was approved for use in Canada in April 1985, but not implemented for seven months, in part because the provinces couldn't agree on how to pay for it.

As more reports surfaced of infected Canadians, Ottawa, as late as 1992, balked at an inquiry. Even some victims opposed an inquiry or criminal probe, saying they just wanted adequate compensation.

Civil proceedings: The Krever commission took from 1993-97, a process delayed by legal challenges to his authority to make findings of misconduct. The RCMP held off on a criminal probe until three class action suits were resolved in 2001.

Criminal process: Before the criminal trial began in February 2006, Perrault, who has a long history of heart problems, applied to have the charges stayed. The trial itself involved scientifically complex evidence, which took time to explain, said Mike McCarthy, past vice-president of the Canadian Hemophilia Society.

And then there were the lawyers. McCarthy feels the Crown was outmatched by the defence. "The Crown sent foot soldiers ... but the defence sent in their generals."

---

Tracey Tyler

Victims call verdict `slap in the face'

One man who was robbed of his health says yesterday's ruling robbed him of chance to heal

Oct 02, 2007 04:30 AM

Theresa Boyle
and Robyn Doolittle
Staff Reporters

They bowed their heads. They sobbed. They looked at each other in disbelief.

For the five rows of victims and family members, the acquittal verdicts delivered in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice yesterday were the latest blows in lives consumed by illness, endless medical appointments, and the care of ailing loved ones.

"After hearing five acquittals, I broke down. I just couldn't deal with it," said Jamie Hill, 33.

At age 12, Hill learned he was infected with a tainted blood product used to treat his hemophelia. He contracted HIV and hepatitis C.

None of the four B.C. complainants who launched this case were in court yesterday. Three of them are now dead. But Hill and some 25 other victims and family members affected by the tainted-blood tragedy showed up to hear the decision, searching for answers in their ongoing battles.

"I believe in healing and reconciliation. I didn't necessarily want a harsh sentence imposed on the gentlemen. But in order to have reconciliation you need to have repentance," he said.

After yesterday's ruling, the Kitchener man said he has not only been robbed of his health, but of a chance to heal.

"You need to acknowledge the injustice and then you can start to heal as a community. I don't feel that today," he said yesterday.

Hill just wants someone to take responsibility for the struggles that have consumed the last 21 years of his life. Every day it is a challenge just to muster the energy to get out of bed, he said.

"Physically, I'm drained. I have no energy. It's like I have constant, constant flu," he added.

He takes up to 20 pills a day, many with side effects. He has at least one doctor's appointment a week. It's a lonely existence, he said, breaking into tears.

"It's hard emotionally, too, because a lot of people don't have the interest or ability to be emotionally intimate and to walk that road of deep grief with you. It's very difficult," he cried.

While Hill has three degrees, he can't work because he's too sick.

"My life doesn't seem to be important, all of the things I've gone through," he said, reflecting on the verdict.

Hill was one of several survivors who shared their tragic stories outside the University Ave. courthouse yesterday.

Mina Shah and her mother clasped arms and avoided the cameras, officials and media scrums. Shah had been the first to breakdown in the courtroom. Her black eyeliner was smudged around her large, puffy eyes.

"The family are victims, too. It's hard on the caregivers. We watched my brother slowly die. I wish he was here to speak for himself, but he's not," said Shah, 44, of Toronto. "Certainly there was political pressure (on the judge). These are drug companies. They have all the money to hire the best lawyers."

Shah's younger brother Karttik – a hemophiliac – was given tainted blood at age 8. In his teens, Karttik complained of feeling tired all the time, he'd sweat at night. At 16, Karttik was diagnosed with HIV and hepatitis C. He died in 2004.

Heather Carlson, 25, stood nearby holding a picture of Karttik. They were best friends for eight years.

"It was hard. It was hard watching this beautiful person slip away. He was always well dressed; looked good. Then he got sick and sicker and thin," Carlson said, gripping the photo. "This wasn't even a slap on the wrist, (the judge) gave them praise for being "responsible" at the time."

Steps away, Shah looked up and began to cry again. "I just can't deal with it anymore," she gasped before breaking down again.

Noella Baker, whose husband died from hepatitis C he contracted from tainted blood, ran to her side and the pair embraced. Others rushed to join.

"This decision is a slap in the face for the victims who are still living," Shah said. "They relied on the judicial system for hope; to show some kind of fairness. You and me, we can have untainted blood. They were sacrificed."

ANALYSIS

TheStar.com | News | Acquittals won't sate primeval need to lay blame

Acquittals won't sate primeval need to lay blame

Oct 02, 2007 04:30 AM

Thomas Walkom
National Affairs Columnist

With the acquittal of all those charged in the tainted blood affair of the 1980s, Canada's worst – and longest-running – public health scandal has finally come to end.

The saga leaves none covered in glory. The blood scandal destroyed the reputation of the once mighty Canadian Red Cross.

It revealed the weakness of the institutions set up to protect Canadians against public health menaces. And it left the former federal Liberal government that inherited the problem defending itself against charges that it was callow and unfeeling.

Justice Horace Krever, whose 1997 report still represents the last word on the affair, found few heroes. In the '80s, as blood-borne diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis C spread across North America, just about everyone was asleep at the switch.

The federal health department didn't bother to calculate the risks associated with certain blood products. Both it and the Red Cross, which at the time was in charge of the country's blood supply, made decisions based on little or no scientific evidence.

Federal regulators, Krever wrote, failed to exercise their authority. Manufacturers ignored scientific evidence that indicated their blood products might be unsafe.

Throughout, money was always the problem.

The Red Cross didn't want to spend money on expensive tests that might prove unnecessary. Nor did it wish to impose new regulations that might discourage its already dwindling base of voluntary blood donors.

Meanwhile, firms that made the blood products used by hemophiliacs and others were equally reluctant to adopt expensive new methods of screening for HIV and hepatitis C.

For governments too, money was never far from the centre.

When Krever presented his 1,138-page report, the Liberal government of the day was quick to issue an apology to all victims of tainted blood. But it was reluctant to compensate them all.

In particular, the government balked at compensating those who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood before 1986 or after 1990, arguing there was nothing more anyone could have done for those unlucky enough to have fallen sick during those periods.

It said that to bend on this would leave the public treasury open to claims based on sentiment rather than fact.

That fight ground on in Parliament until last year when Conservative Health Minister Tony Clement announced that Ottawa would pay $1 billion to roughly 5,000 hepatitis C victims excluded from the earlier deal.

That was the systemic side of the picture – profit-conscious companies, cost-conscious bureaucrats, precedent-conscious governments.

But there was another, more primeval part of the scandal. Many wanted someone – anyone – to take responsibility and pay a price.

They literally wanted blood.

In Japan, France and Switzerland, similar scandals had led to criminal charges.

In this country, such charges weren't laid until 2002 – against former Red Cross medical head Dr. Roger Perrault, two former Health Canada officials, a vice-president of a New Jersey blood company, the company itself and the Canadian Red Cross.

Three years later, the charges against the Red Cross were dropped after it pleaded guilty to a lesser offence.

Yesterday, the other defendants were all acquitted.

Given that the case centred on the state of knowledge about what were, in the 1980s, relatively mysterious diseases, the Crown's task was daunting.

Nor was it helped when, early on, the main prosecution witness changed his mind as to the defendants' culpability.

In the end, Justice Mary Lou Benotto ruled the charges against the defendants "were not only unsupported by the evidence, they were disproved."

Perrault still faces additional criminal charges related to allegations that blood donors weren't adequately screened. But even if the Crown goes ahead, these charges will mark a denouement rather than a climax.

For in a typically Canadian way, this tragedy is over. People died. A royal commission was held.

Bureaucratic changes have been made. And life, such as it is, goes on.