Inmates gave bribes to donate infected blood

INMATES bribed their way onto a scheme to donate infected blood, documents seen by The Telegraph show.

Plasma used to create a medical treatment used on NHS patients was collected from US prisons. Donors used bribes to bypass checks that should have screened out those who tested positive for hepatitis, used intravenous drugs and had unsafe tattoos.

The compromised plasma is at the heart of the infected blood scandal, in which thousands of people in Britain in the 1970s and 80s were given blood transfusions or blood products that were infected with viruses such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and HIV.

The high-risk plasma was used in a “miracle” treatment for the genetic blood-clotting disorder haemophilia, called Factor VIII.

Prisoners at Louisiana State Penitentiary admitted to bribing fellow inmates to get a spot on a prison plasma scheme, which paid donors $15 (£12), according to court documents published in The Poison Line: Life and Death in the Infected Blood Scandal, and taken into evidence by the Infected Blood Inquiry.

Richard Vincent, a former inmate, said in a legal deposition: “You can bleed twice a week, that’s $30. You could buy a carton of Camels for $6. And you could give that to one of the plasma workers... Then they didn’t care what you had.”

Companies including Bayer, Baxter and Armour pooled tens of thousands of donations together. Only one donor needed to have a virus for the whole batch to be contaminated.

Some 1,250 people with haemophilia in the UK contracted HIV from Factor VIII and up to 5,000 more with hepatitis C. In a parallel scandal, as many as 26,800 NHS patients were exposed to hepatitis C from blood transfusion; hundreds of whom could still be undiagnosed.

Survivors and bereaved family members are seeking compensation and an apology from the UK Government, which oversaw the imports, when the Infected Blood Inquiry delivers its report on May 20. The plasma centre in the Louisiana prison was run by inmates paid $3 per day and overlooked basic safety. “It wasn’t nothing to see people having sex in the bathroom before they go on the table to bleed,” said Vincent. “They had oral sex and anal sex then five minutes later they’re on the table giving blood.”

Vincent said he had hepatitis B and C, which he could have contracted from tattoos in prison or drug use.

Tom Mull, a retired lawyer who uncovered the plasma centre at Louisiana and interviewed Vincent, said: “It was so irresponsible that it was hard to believe they had actually done it.”

The US Food and Drug Administration licensed plasma centres in prisons in Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee and Mississippi. Plasma collected at Louisiana State Penitentiary was used by Baxter Healthcare.

A spokesman for Bayer said it is cooperating with the Infected Blood Inquiry. A Baxter spokesman said it was committed to providing the highest quality products to its patients and customers.

The Poison Line: Life and Death in the Infected Blood Scandal

Prisoners at Louisiana jail bypassed screening tests before donating contaminated plasma