Christine Lee is an English medical researcher. She is Emerita Professor of Haemophilia at the University of London, [1] and founding Editor of Haemophilia . [2] She trained in medicine at Somerville College, Oxford, where she was awarded First Class Honours and was the first female scholar of the Oxford University Medical School. She was awarded a Doctorate of Science (Medicine) by the University of London in 1996. [3]
Over two days, 20-21 October 2020, Professor Lee gave evidence in person to the Infected Blood Inquiry. [4] [5] On the second day of her evidence, whilst addressing questions about an Oral History Transcript (THOM0000001), [6] [7] Lee told the inquiry that what she did not "like about the idea of compensation", was that "it suggests liability", but went on to qualify that she believed those who were providing treatment at the time were "doing their best". [8] [9]
On this date, evidence will be heard from: Professor Christine Lee (in person)
On this date, evidence will be heard from: Professor Christine Lee (in person)
The second document is from the oral history transcript. It's THOM0000001... ...You say this: "And in the context of today, you know, there are one or two haemophilia patients who are really driving. They want compensation, and their argument is that Britain didn't get self-sufficient..."
A key witness giving evidence to the infected blood inquiry was heckled with chants of "liar" and told the hearing she disagreed with compensating the victims of the scandal because it suggested "liability".
But what I don't like about the idea is the idea of compensation because what compensation does, it suggests liability. And I truly believe that people at that time were doing what they thought was the best, and the side effects were really not at all clear, and certainly HIV was a tragedy that nobody could have foreseen.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
| Other | |
 | This biography of an English academic is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Haemophilia, or hemophilia, is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body's ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding. This results in people bleeding for a longer time after an injury, easy bruising, and an increased risk of bleeding inside joints or the brain. Those with a mild case of the disease may have symptoms only after an accident or during surgery. Bleeding into a joint can result in permanent damage while bleeding in the brain can result in long term headaches, seizures, or a decreased level of consciousness.
Haemophilia B, also spelled hemophilia B, is a blood clotting disorder causing easy bruising and bleeding due to an inherited mutation of the gene for factor IX, and resulting in a deficiency of factor IX. It is less common than factor VIII deficiency.
The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.
The Inquiries Act 2005 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. According to the explanatory notes, published by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Act "is intended to provide a comprehensive statutory framework for inquiries set up by Ministers to look into matters of public concern". The act repealed the entirety of the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921, a much shorter bill that also empowered Ministers to set up so-called statutory inquiries. The act was motivated in part by the spiraling costs of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and a desire to control the length and cost of future inquiries. The act has been criticised by a number of groups and individuals, generally concerned with the power Ministers have over the remit of the inquiry and the publication of its final report.
The tainted blood disaster, or the tainted blood scandal, was a Canadian public health crisis in the 1980s in which thousands of people were exposed to HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products. It became apparent that inadequately-screened blood, often coming from high-risk populations, was entering the system through blood transfusions. It is now considered to be the largest single (preventable) public health disaster in the history of Canada.
Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal is a feature-length documentary by Arkansas filmmaker and investigative journalist Kelly Duda. Through interviews and presentation of documents and footage, Duda alleges that for more than two decades, spanning the 1970s and 1980s, the Arkansas prison system profited from selling blood plasma from inmates infected with viral hepatitis and HIV. The documentary contends that thousands of victims who received transfusions of a blood product derived from these plasma products, Factor VIII, died as a result.
Kelly Duda is an American filmmaker and activist from Arkansas. Duda spent seven years making Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal.
Molly Christine Meacher, Baroness Meacher, known from 2000 to 2006 as Lady Layard, is a British life peer and former social worker.
Variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD), commonly referred to as "mad cow disease", is a type of brain disease within the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy family. Initial symptoms include psychiatric problems, behavioral changes, and painful sensations. In the later stages of the illness, patients may exhibit poor coordination, dementia and involuntary movements. The length of time between exposure and the development of symptoms is unclear, but is believed to be years to decades. Average life expectancy following the onset of symptoms is 13 months.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a large number of people – most of whom had haemophilia – were infected with hepatitis C and HIV, the virus that leads to acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), as a result of receiving contaminated clotting factor products. In the United Kingdom, these were supplied by the National Health Service (NHS). The Haemophilia Society estimates that around 4,700 people with bleeding disorders were infected, with some estimates as high as 6,000. As of August 2022, at least 2,400 people have died from the use of contaminated factor VIII and factor IX clotting agents and the viruses they transmitted.
The Penrose Inquiry was the public inquiry into hepatitis C and HIV infections from NHS Scotland treatment with blood and blood products such as factor VIII, often used by people with haemophilia. The event is often called the Tainted Blood Scandal or Contaminated Blood Scandal.
Arthur Leslie Bloom FCRP, FRCPath (1930–1992) was a Welsh physician focused on the field of Haemophilia.
Graham Francis Hassell Medley is professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the director of the Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases there.
R (March) v Secretary of State for Health was a 2010 judicial review which challenged the UK Department of Health's decision not to implement Recommendation 6(h) of the Archer Independent Inquiry. The case was important in developing the doctrine of error of fact in public law which previously had not readily been the subject of judicial intervention.
A and Others v National Blood Authority and Another, also known as the Hepatitis C Litigation, was a landmark product liability case of 2001 primarily concerning blood transfusions but also blood products or transplanted organs, all of which were infected with hepatitis C, where liability was established under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and the Product Liability Directive (85/374/EEC) even in the absence of the ability to test to ascertain which blood transfusions were defective. The claimants were 114 individuals, six of whom were considered lead plaintiffs and given close consideration by the judge, Mr Justice Burton. Several of the claimants were minors who had become infected with Hepatitis C in the course of their treatment for leukaemia. The defendants were the National Blood Authority (NBA) and in respect of Wales, the Velindre NHS Trust, Cardiff. The court found that the UK government should have implemented measures to screen donated blood for HCV by March 1990, rather than September 1991.
Jane Anderson is a British physician who specialises in the management of HIV/AIDS. She serves as an expert advisor for Public Health England and as Chair of the National AIDS Trust.
The Advisory Committee on the Virological Safety of Blood, often abbreviated to ACVSB, was a committee formed in March 1989 in the United Kingdom to devise policy and advise ministers and the Department of Health on the safety of blood with respect to viral infections. The scope of the ACVSB concerned areas of significant policy for the whole of the United Kingdom and operated under the terms of reference: "To advise the Health Departments of the UK on measures to ensure the virological safety of blood, whilst maintaining adequate supplies of appropriate quality for both immediate use and for plasma processing." Of particular emphasis to the remit was the testing of blood donors using surrogate markers for Non-A Non-B hepatitis (NANBH) and later on, HCV-screening of blood donors.
The HIV Haemophilia Litigation [1990] 41 BMLR 171, [1990] 140 NLJR 1349 (CA), [1989] E N. 2111, also known as AMcG002, and HHL, was a legal claim by 962 plaintiffs, mainly haemophiliacs, who were infected with HIV as a result of having been treated with blood products in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first central defendants were the then Department of Health, with other defendants being the Licensing Authority of the time, (MCA), the CSM, the CBLA, and the regional health authorities of England and Wales. In total, there were 220 defendants in the action.
In 1994, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) informed the Minister for Health that a blood product they had distributed in 1977 for the treatment of pregnant mothers had been contaminated with the hepatitis C virus. Following a report by an expert group, it was discovered that the BTSB had produced and distributed a second infected batch in 1991. The Government established a Tribunal of Inquiry to establish the facts of the case and also agreed to establish a tribunal for the compensation of victims but seemed to frustrate and delay the applications of these, in some cases terminally, ill women.
The Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS) is an organization that represents the interests of people with haemophilia, von Willebrand disease and other inherited bleeding disorders.
