Orphaned at 9 by the tainted blood scandal Father passed HIV to wife, inquiry told
A womAn told the contaminated blood inquiry yesterday how she was orphaned at the age of nine after her father was infected with HIV and unwittingly passed it on to her mother.
Lauren Palmer’s parents Stephen and Barbara died within eight days of each other in 1993.
now 35 – the same age as her father when he died – miss Palmer told a public inquiry how she was separated from her half-brothers and pulled out of school to live with relatives.
‘It was shattering,’ she said, fighting back tears. ‘not only did I lose my parents, I lost my brothers who were the next closest thing to me. we should have been together.’
The make- up artist told the longawaited Infected Blood Inquiry how she had ‘screamed the hospital down’ when she had to be tested for HIV when she was nine and terrified of needles.
The inquiry comes after the Daily mail campaigned for more than 30 years for justice for the victims who were treated with contaminated blood imported from the US in the 70s and 80s.
The disaster – which has killed almost 3,000 – is described as the ‘worst treaters, ment scandal in nHS history’. miss Palmer’s father Stephen – a severe haemophiliac – was one of 7,500 people infected with HIV and hepatitis C after being given contaminated products.
The hearing in London was told that he was diagnosed with HIV in 1985 and later with
‘I knew it was terrible news’
hepatitis B and C. However, his wife, who was 40 when she died, only discovered in 1991 that she had contracted HIV and hepatitis C from him.
mrs Palmer had kept her illness secret for as long as she could but finally told her three children – including two boys from a previous marriage – at a ‘family meeting’ in 1992.
‘my mother sat us all down and said that she was very, very sick and there was no way she was going to get better and that she had HIV,’ said miss Palmer.
‘As a child I had no idea what those words were, but I instantly broke down in tears because I knew it was terrible news.’ She described how her mother turned to alcoholism and her father became violent and developed psychosis as the couple ‘who had been very much in love’ wasted away from HIVrelated illnesses. They were admitted to hospital in oxford and they died in August 1993.
Her maternal grandfather took his own life shortly after. Her brothers were sent to live with their father in wiltshire and she moved to Sussex. She said: ‘I always knew them as my brotheven if they were from a previous marriage. It would rip me apart after visiting them. I just wanted to be a family again.’
miss Palmer, from Bristol, said she left her new home at 17.
She was also forced to keep the cause of her parents’ deaths a secret to avoid the stigma associated with HIV. no inquests were held, fuelling fears of a historic cover-up.
The inquiry – which is now in its second week – will hold sessions around the country.