Civil servants and politicians in France were taken to court and some went to prison because of contaminated blood products – why can the same happen here?
In 1999 in France, four ministers were charged with the manslaughter of five people who died from AIDS and the infection of two others in 1985. They were accused of delaying systematic testing for AIDS in donated blood until a French test being developed by its own Pasteur Institute was ready. An American-made test was available in March 1985, five months before the Pasteur test. These seven people received contaminated blood after the American test was available and before the French test was implemented. One minister was convicted, but given no sentence. Earlier, around 30 transfusion service staff were tried and many convicted and imprisoned. The main reason behind the criminal charges was that there had appeared to have been a conscious decision to continue supplying possibly contaminated products in order to assist a French research institute. It seemed that the interests of the Institute were put before the safety of the public. In this country, there was no delay between the dis
