The End is Coming (and other cynical musings): Soft Cells

October 1st 2007 – The Canadian ‘tainted blood scandal’ ended with the acquittal of four Canadian doctors and of an American drug company. They had been charged with criminal negligence that led to the infection of at least 20,000 patients with the HIV and hepatitis C viruses. The original accusations were brought against the doctors in 1985 and a cool 22 years later, the victims are still sick, the doctors and the drug company cannot clean their blemished record and the Canadian judicial system is missing a few million dollars.

I don’t know how to begin to criticise a 22 year trial but as we will see later, it seems to be the standard length in this type of case. That’s right; there have been so many that a trend can be established. Furthermore, I question the initial accusation that these doctors are to blame if their parent company does not have a 100% efficient screening method for the gallons of blood that are donated every week. Nothing is 100%: condoms are 96% effective, a vegetable oil powered car still emits damaging fumes, diet sprite still contains high levels of sodium, Gandhi was still unbelievably racist towards the black populations of South Africa and a day is always slightly less than exactly 24 hours, requiring intermittent leap seconds. The victims have been infected with horrible diseases but without them being able to prove that the screening process was not carried out because the doctors went to lunch early, the physicians did their job and the tragedy happened anyway. It happens all over the world, is quite frequent and the verdict is almost always positive for the accused.

To give a first example, in 2003, 30 French officials and health workers were acquitted of very much the same charges. In this case, thousands of people were infected with the HIV virus in 1985 yet the courts could not prove that there was ‘intent to cause death’. Among the indicted were the former prime minister, Laurent Fabius and the social affairs minister, Edmond Hervé. When the verdict was announced, it caused a massive outrage amongst the victims that had survived the 18 years of the trial. Some jurors were even harassed with shouts of ‘Shame on you, you haven't even read the file... We will remember your names’ (BBC News Service, 2003). Just like the Canadian case, the doctors cannot be accused of a terrible flaw of the blood transmission system, or can they?

As a final example, I cite the tainted blood scandal that implicated 7 Bulgarian health workers in 1991. They were accused of voluntarily giving AIDS blood to 428 children in a Libyan hospital. The trial still took over 12 years and in 2004, 6 of them were condemned to death by hanging. Without wanting to generalise, Libya is not the most liberal, impartial and fair country on earth so the accusation and the investigation seem completely fraudulent to me. The medics confessed under torture to their accusations and no amount of appeals could save them. They say justice is blind but she sure likes jewellery. In an ingenious publicity stunt, the new French President in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated the release of the prisoners by paying a massive donation to Libya’s AIDS children fund (secretly called the PPF or ‘Presidential Party Fund). Libya was not so happy a few days later when France flew the prisoner back to their native Bulgaria; where they were immediately pardoned and let free by the Bulgarian Prime Minister. They get to live with their nightmarish memories of Libyan prisons, among other things.

They, as well as the French and Canadian officials and medics must live with the memory of giving tainted blood to hopeful patients and indirectly causing widespread death and suffering. They didn’t do it on purpose but it did happen and they failed to prevent it. As much as I am happy to see that they were all acquitted, I believe that the axiom ‘be careful, not sorry’ applies in this situation.