Contaminated Blood: Lord Horam supports compensation in Victims and Prisoners Bill debate, 28 years after Newcastle campaigner writes to him calling for compensation.

Contaminated blood, Self Sufficiency report 2006 not to be used, my research vindicated

Dear Sir Chris Wormald,

It has come to my attention from a reliable source that due to serious omissions and inaccuracies in the 2006 report “Self-Sufficiency in blood products in England and Wales: A chronology from 1973 to 1991” you have advised in a letter dated 30th August 2017 that “the department should not refer to this document in any future correspondence or for briefing Ministers”. I have viewed this letter.

I commend your decision to finally act on this and do the right thing as both Labour and Conservatives at the highest level have repeatedly blocked and deceived us with this document which is far from an accurate timelines of events with crucial documents excluded. However the government must now address the serious damage that has been done to haemophiliacs and their families since the release of this report from unnamed authors. It is important to note that this report was published as a DIRECT RESPONSE to a dossier of documents submitted to government by the Newcastle Journal and I in our award winning “Bad Blood” campaign. This can be read in back copies of the publication.

As a victim of the “worst medical treatment disaster in the history of the NHS” (as stated by Lord Winston) I critiqued the Self Sufficiency report for my ESRC Michael Young award winning dissertation in 2006, an award presented to me by Sir Peter Bottomley who coincidently happens to be Chair of the APPG for Haemophilia and Contaminated Blood. I also received the COTT Action = Life award in Washington DC for “upholding truth and justice and services to haemophiliacs, HIV and hepatitis C” in recognition of my work but for years the government would not act on my research findings. As I wrote, even the title is a joke as the UK FAILED to achieve Self-Sufficiency… The report should have begun with the words “failure to achieve self-sufficiency in blood products” to reflect the tragic reality which resulted in the loss of the lives of so many of the UK haemophilia community given contaminated blood. I was able to trace my husband’s imported factor concentrate treatment directly back to infected donors selling their blood in Arkansas State Penitentiary with the help of our US lawyers using the batch numbers.

I assisted the 2 ladies who came to see you on this issue, a campaigner from Wales and a Baroness as they requested of me in writing and by phone but apparently one had decided they could present my research on the inaccuracies better than the actual author and excluded me from the meeting until I protested by which I was too distressed as a widow to deal with them anymore. I lost 2 of my family to this disaster, my husband and brother in law from HIV and hepatitis C and a third victim my father in law who died of a heart attack due to the stress of losing his youngest son and campaigning for justice. This has severely impacted on our daily lives and after their deaths left me severely traumatized and now suffering chronic health problems myself. I wrote my dissertation in the months immediately following the death of my husband.

My research has been REPEATEDLY BLOCKED by the government for years despite presenting this in a face to face meeting with Anne Milton in 2010 in the presence of fellow campaigner and contaminated blood victim Colette Wintle with Rowena Jecock and others present from the Blood Policy department and asking for a response on the content. All I got was thank-you, well done on your award letter WITHOUT government addressing any of the issues which I had been promised.

I am furious at the way I have been treated as both a victim and a researcher and request a full written apology from the government as a matter of urgency.

Under Freedom of Information I request to be informed of every time the Self Sufficiency Report 2006 was referred to both in parliament and by politicians with regard to decision making as the haemophilia community was REPEATEDLY told also in personal letters that this document has been used to affect major decision making under both Labour and Conservative governments. This includes whether to “compensate on a parity with Eire” for the current financial Consultation and the scrapping of the Trusts that supported the haemophilia community. In fact it is referred to in parliament as the so called “definitive report” when my research showed it is not worth the paper it is written on due to the omissions as key evidence. I have read the omitted documents in detail so am fully aware of the content which shows alleged negligence of public bodies and serious safety violations time and time again. Not surprising then that these documents were not included in the DOH report!

All government decisions affecting haemophiliacs from 2006 must now be reviewed as a matter of urgency due to the fact the government were very keen to emphasize their reliance on this sham of a report. This has had serious consequences for our community.

You should be aware that many of the documents now being released via the National Archives at Kew are those I returned in 2006 via solicitor Paul Saxon of Blackett Pratt and Hart, Newcastle upon Tyne which formed part of my late husband’s legal files in the 1991 HIV litigation. These were documents utilized within my dissertation with their return to parliament recorded in letters, in Hansard in 2006 with questions from Lord Jenkin of Rodin who tried to assist us in obtaining the truth from government and in the Guardian and other media. They are copies of documents that government wrote to me had been “inadvertently destroyed by an over zealous civil servant” along with the records of former Health Minister Lord David Owen who put money aside for the UK to become self-sufficient in blood products and continues to back my research in writing. After he left the Health Department he discovered his commitment had not been followed through and he has stated in the Guardian that if there was ever a Public Inquiry the government wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. He has called for haemophiliacs to be compensated which has never happened to this day.

If I had not returned copies to them in 2006, due to the government’s destruction of their own records there would be hardly any blood policy documents to review in the National Archives at Kew and show the history of blood policy in the UK and how haemophiliacs came to be contaminated. Perhaps that was the idea? All of the above was shared with the 2 women who met with you and is recorded and others they referred to me.

I look forward to your response as a matter of urgency and call on the government to do the right thing finally and compensate haemophiliacs and their families on a parity with Eire as recommended by Lord Archer of Sandwell in his report “on loss and need” on the grounds of “extraordinary suffering”. The Archer Inquiry had no remit to include liability and therefore Lord Archer informed me that he could not include certain documents shared with him that showed alleged liability but he did utilize a lot of my research and echo my recommendations.

This DOH report has made the situation far worse for haemophiliacs and more have died since its publication going to their graves denied justice. This has got to stop now.

A 2010 review won in the High Court that relied on documents acquired by Colette Wintle and I also showed that Lord Warner (Labour) had misled parliament and the public for years giving a false narrative on Eire, a false narrative relied upon and continued by the Tory government. I have repeatedly written asking them to change this and apologize. There are so many things that need urgently rectifying its hard to know where to start. For years campaigners were told it was not in the public interest to hold a Public Inquiry, finally Theresa May overturned this nonsense, blood safety is an issue for all. Now we need to ensure a suitable Chairperson and panel is appointed as soon as possible for the Public Inquiry… government should not delay the proper compensation promised by David Cameron any longer, victims have waited long enough!

I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the longest standing haemophilia campaign groups Haemophilia Action UK, Manor House Group and independent campaigner Colette Wintle (Women Bleed Too) with the most knowledge and evidence were deliberately left out of meetings on the financial Consultation and from that point on boycotted it in protest. Therefore I and others allege that the Consultation is undemocratic, unethical and allegedly illegal as the original solicitors representing haemophiliacs in the 1991 HIV litigation under Justice Ognal were not informed of changes so were unable to ensure their old clients had relevant legal representation and advice on their rights. We were essentially blackmailed, told if we did not sign to go to the new organisation our money would be stopped in November. This is not “informed consent” as I was unable to obtain answers to my questions about the future impact on widows and whether their money would be reduced or stopped at the time of signing.

Incredibly despite my late husband being told he and his family would have substantial security for life by lawyers and echoed in written Parliamentary statements, there is now the threat of our money being reduced or monthly allowances on which widows have relied for years being scrapped. This is totally unacceptable. The original lawyers in the HIV litigation have been informed and are as shocked as I and remain deeply concerned regarding what happened in 1991 and as they put it alleged culpability of government with incriminating documents kept out of court, documents that I only saw years after my husband signed a waiver now alleged to be illegal not to take legal action for a second infection with hepatitis C.

Hence government divided our community and families between HIV and hepatitis C infection when both should have been argued together in 1991. (A top QC alleged the signing of the waiver could not have been “informed consent” due to the fact my husband was not told he had hepatitis C at the time and his positive test result was withheld for years!) This dividing of our community was exceptionally cruel given that there may be several haemophiliacs in the same family on different levels of support or for years no support. This was a terrible mistake but a government mistake so do not even think of punishing widows that had nothing to do with this decision by removing their money next April.

I look forward to your prompt response and thank-you again for withdrawing the use of this report. The media are copied in to this letter along with supporting politicians.

With thanks

Yours sincerely

Carol Grayson

Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights/WOT and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad.  She was a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.