Kelly Duda | |
|---|---|
 Kelly Duda testifying in Parliament in the UK before the Lord Archer Inquiry in 2007 | |
| Born | Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | filmmaker and activist |
Kelly Duda is an American filmmaker and activist from Arkansas best known for the 2005 documentary, Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal .
Duda contributed to the Fuji Television documentary, The Hepatitis C Epidemic: A 15-Year Government Cover-up. The program won a Peabody Award in 2003 and was reportedly watched by more than 12 million viewers in Japan. [1]
After 8 years of research [2] and 5 years of filming, [3] Duda released Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal in 2005, a feature-length documentary, which alleges that in 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. [4] [5] The premiere of the film was delayed due to a legal dispute about the film's ownership. [6] Duda experienced negative responses in Arkansas as a result of his investigation, including death threats, his tires being slashed, break-ins, and files being stolen. [3] [7] (subscription required)
As a result of the documentary, on July 11, 2007, Duda testified at the Lord Archer Inquiry on Contaminated Blood in the Parliament of the United Kingdom overseen by Peter Archer, Baron Archer of Sandwell. [8] The British inquiry aimed to investigate the British government's culpability in the National Health Service's use of tainted blood. Duda gave evidence as to the United States' role in the events. [9]
On December 4, 2017, Duda testified in a criminal trial in Naples, Italy against Duilio Poggiolini, and 10 representatives of the Marcucci Group, who have been charged with manslaughter for supplying blood products (including factor 8) to Italian patients, including hemophiliacs. 2,605 Italians have been infected with HIV and hepatitis from contaminated blood products. [10]
In 2012, Kelly accompanied actor and activist George Takei to the Rohwer War Relocation Center site and cemetery, marking the 70th anniversary of Executive Order 9066. [11] He was also a photographer on the 2014 documentary To Be Takei. [12] [ better source needed ]
On September 20, 2007, Kelly Duda traveled to Jena, Louisiana with students from the University of Central Arkansas to participate in the Jena 6 march for justice, along with Martin Luther King III. [13]
Duda was co-founder, along with Lanette Grate, and president of the short-lived West Memphis Three Injustice Project. Originally named the West Memphis Three Innocence Project, the 501(c)(3) organization, was renamed after a cease and desist order for unauthorized and illegal use of the Innocence Project's name. [14] The mission of the West Memphis Three Injustice Project was to help exonerate Arkansas prisoners Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley and Damien Echols, otherwise known as the West Memphis Three.
In 2015, Duda wrote an editorial and spoke at a committee hearing on ending Robert E. Lee Day as a state holiday in Arkansas, which at the time was celebrated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. [15] After two separate bills were drafted to end the holiday, the proposed law failed four times to make it out of the Republican controlled committee. [16] In December 2016, Duda supported a resolution from the City of Little Rock urging lawmakers to eliminate Lee Day as a holiday in favor of MLK Day. [17] Duda wrote an opinion piece on the matter in 2017, and later that year SB519 eliminated Lee Day as a state holiday, instead establishing a memorial day for Lee in October by gubernatorial proclamation and allowing MLK Day, the federal holiday to stand on its own. [18] [19]
In 2021, Duda launched a public campaign to free Rolf Kaestel, an inmate whistleblower who appeared in Duda's "Factor 8". Kaestel was serving a life sentence for robbing a taco hut of $265 with a water pistol in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1981. [20] After serving 40 years, Kaestel was freed when Governor Asa Hutchinson commuted his sentence. [21] [22]
A blood-borne disease is a disease that can be spread through contamination by blood and other body fluids. Blood can contain pathogens of various types, chief among which are microorganisms, like bacteria and parasites, and non-living infectious agents such as viruses. Three blood-borne pathogens in particular, all viruses, are cited as of primary concern to health workers by the CDC-NIOSH: HIV, hepatitis B (HVB), & hepatitis C (HVC).
The Canadian Red Cross Society is a Canadian humanitarian charitable organization, and one of 192 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. The organization receives funding from both private donations and from Canadian government departments.
Health Management Associates is a defunct Arkansas-based company involved in a blood-management scandal during the 1980s.
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.
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS), or Seirbhís Fuilaistriúcháin na hÉireann in Irish, was established in Ireland as the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) by the Blood Transfusion Service Board (Establishment) Order, 1965. It took its current name in April 2000 by Statutory Instrument issued by the Minister for Health and Children to whom it is responsible. The Service provides blood and blood products for humans.
Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal is a feature-length documentary by Arkansas filmmaker and investigative journalist, Kelly Duda, released in 2005. Through interviews and the presentation of documents and footage, Duda alleged that in 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 blood products derived from these plasma products, Factor VIII, died as a result.
Contaminated hemophilia blood products were a serious public health problem in the late 1970s up to 1985.
The Lindsay Tribunal was set up in Ireland in 1999 to investigate the infection of haemophiliacs with HIV and Hepatitis C from contaminated blood products supplied by the Blood Transfusion Service Board.
In April 1991, the doctor and journalist Anne-Marie Casteret published an article in the French weekly magazine the L'Événement du jeudi showing that the Centre National de Transfusion Sanguine knowingly distributed blood products contaminated with HIV to haemophiliacs in 1984 and 1985, leading to an outbreak of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C in numerous countries. It is estimated that 6,000 to 10,000 haemophiliacs were infected in the United States alone. In France, 4,700 people were infected, and over 300 died. Other impacted countries include Canada, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.
The HIV-Tainted Blood Case is a Supreme Court of Japan case that resulted in a landmark decision regarding criminal responsibility for administrative negligence. The Court upheld the conviction of Akihito Matsumura, former director of the biologics division of the old Health and Welfare Ministry, for his failure to prevent the use of HIV-contaminated blood products in the 1980s that resulted in the death of a patient. According to the two lower court rulings, Matsumura caused the death of a patient with liver disease in December 1995 by failing to stop the use of unheated blood products contaminated with HIV. The decision marks the first time that a government official has been held criminally responsible for administrative negligence. The decision finalized a verdict of 1 year in prison, suspended for two years, for Matsumura.
The contaminated blood scandal, also known as the infected blood scandal, is a British medical scandal in which a large number of people were infected with hepatitis C and HIV, as a result of receiving contaminated blood or contaminated clotting factor products. Many of the products were imported from the US, and distributed to patients by the National Health Service throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Most recipients had haemophilia or had received a blood transfusion following childbirth or surgery. It has been estimated that more than 30,000 patients received contaminated blood, resulting in the deaths of at least 3,000 people. In July 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May announced an independent public inquiry into the scandal, for which she was widely praised as successive governments going back to the 1980s had refused such an inquiry. May stated that "the victims and their families who have suffered so much pain and hardship deserve answers as to how this could possibly have happened." The final report was published in seven volumes on 20 May 2024, concluding that the scandal could have been largely avoided, patients were knowingly exposed to "unacceptable risks", and that doctors, the government and NHS tried to cover-up what happened by "hiding the truth".
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.
Charles Rocco Carmine Rizza FRCPEd was a British consultant physician who specialised in haematology.
HIV/AIDS in Japan has been recognized as a serious health issue in recent years. However, overall awareness amongst the general population of Japan regarding sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, remains low.
M.C. and Others v Italy is a case decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on 3 September 2013 in which Article 1 of Protocol 1 (A1P1) was engaged due to the applicants not being afforded annual uprating which the court deemed damage to their property of a disproportionate character in the form of an exorbitant charge. The Strasbourg ruling sets an important precedent for higher monthly compensation payments to be paid to the 60,000 or so victims of contaminated blood transfusions in Italy. The effect of this ruling increased payments to the applicants by 40%.
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.
CN v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care [2022] EWCA Civ 86 was an appeal against the refusal of permission to apply for judicial review to challenge the infected blood support scheme administered by the NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) for non-inclusion of those infected with chronic Hepatitis B virus. The appeal was based on the grounds that the exclusion of those infected with HBV from the England Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS) was unreasonable and discriminatory, contrary to article 14 when read in conjunction with article 8 and article 1 protocol 1 (A1P1) of the ECHR. The appellant also claimed that there was different treatment and that the failure to include those infected with HBV was unreasonable, and that the original application for review should not have been deemed out of time.
The Irish Haemophilia Society (IHS) is an organization that represents the interests of people with haemophilia, von Willebrand disease and other inherited bleeding disorders.
{{cite news}}: Text "Prison Legal News" ignored (help)In the 1970s and 80s, 4,689 haemophiliacs became infected with hepatitis C and HIV after they were treated with contaminated blood products supplied by the NHS. Of those infected, 2,883 have since died.
A San Francisco attorney filed a class–action lawsuit Monday on behalf of thousands of hemophiliacs who claim that Bayer Corp. and several other companies knowingly sold blood products contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C.