Infected blood scandal tore family apart, inquiry is told
A WOMAN told how the contaminated blood scandal killed both her parents when she was nine years old.
Lauren Palmer, 33, whose haemophilic dad was given HIV infected blood and passed it to her mum, said: “It tore the family apart.”
She was split up from her brothers and added: “I was told not to breathe a word about HIV, it was so stigmatised.” She said that there was “lots of knock-on, which has lasted to this day”. On the opening day of the inquiry into the scandal the ex-judge leading it said the total of those affected could top 25,000. Sir Brian Langstaff added: “Consequences of what was done may be continuing to cause death even now.” Some 2,800 died after being given blood in the 1970s and 1980s.