Medic ‘increased the use of blood linked to disease’
Prof says not enough evidence on Factor Eight
A SCoTS medic increased the use of blood products later blamed for causing people to be infected with hIV and hepatitis, an inquiry has been told.
The Infected Blood Inquiry is being held to find out how thousands were infected with HIV and other blood-borne diseases by contaminated blood products used in the NHS.
Yesterday, the inquiry heard from Professor
Christopher Ludlam, who in 1980 was appointed consultant and director at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, taking over from Dr Howard Davies. Part of his job was to oversee treatment of people with haemophilia, a genetic disorder which prevents the blood from clotting.
At the time Davies’s normal course of treatment to stop a bleed was a frozen blood product prepared from the blood plasma of a single donor as he felt there was less likelihood of it containing viruses.
Another blood-based product, Factor Eight, was made from mixing plasma from multiple donors.
When Ludlam took office he began increasing use of Factor Eight but the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service struggled to meet demand.
The inquiry heard there had been theories which suggested Factor Eight could cause progressive liver disease. But Ludlam prescribed it because there was not enough “evidence”.
Ludlam was asked if he had talks with his patients about the risks involved and said he would have done but he hadn’t recorded any such conversations in the patients’ medical notes.