Doctors ‘bribed to use infected blood products’
Pharmaceutical giants have been accused of bribing doctors to use infected blood products that gave patients HIV and hepatitis C.
Money was offered to NHS hospitals to buy imported US blood products, which were known to be at high risk of contamination with blood-borne viruses, The Telegraph can reveal.
In the 1970s and 1980s, 1,250 people with haemophilia were infected with HIV after treatment with blood-clotting drug Factor VIII. Up to 5,000 more contracted hepatitis C in what has been called the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history.
The Infected Blood Inquiry is due to report on May 20 on mistakes that led to some 3,000 people dying after being treated with contaminated blood products and transfusions.
It is expected to be critical of the role big pharma played in the infections of people with haemophilia, a genetic bleeding disorder that prevents clotting. Survivors and bereaved relatives have been seeking compensation for 40 years and hope the government will finally deliver.
Factor VIII, was invented in the 1960s and deemed a “wonder drug” for haemophilia. US pharmaceutical companies paid high-risk donors for plasma, including intravenous drug users, prisoners and gay men. They collected plasma from STI clinics and set up mobile donation trucks outside gay nightclubs as the Aids crisis was emerging in the 1980s.
In the UK, where it is illegal to pay for plasma, Factor VIII was made from donations by British people and deemed to be safer.
The UK was warned in 1974 that US Factor VIII was more likely to contain hepatitis, with the World Health Organization advising countries the next year not to import blood products.
By 1983 all Factor VIII manufactured in the US was “highly likely” to contain HIV, according to court testimony from 1999. However, doctors believed the benefits of Factor VIII outweighed the risks and failed to warn patients.
Doctors were offered incentives to prioritise the US Factor VIII over the British version.
A letter from January 1981 shows that St Thomas’ Hospital in London was offered thousands of pounds in rebates for buying Factor VIII made in the US by Bayer and Baxter Healthcare.
Distributor Inter-Pharma said it would pay St Thomas’ rebates of up to £8,500 – almost £41,000 today – for buying four million units of commercial Factor VIII, according to the document, which is published in The Poison Line. One dose of Factor VIII contained around 1,000 units and patients with severe haemophilia A could be treated with multiple doses a week.
“Doctors were literally offered cash to use dangerous products,” said Jason Evans, director of the campaign group Factor 8. “In my opinion, on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies, this basically amounts to bribery.”
For every 250,000 units purchased, Dr Geoffrey Savidge, director of St Thomas’ haemophilia centre, was offered £400, equivalent to almost £2,000 today.
Prof Edward Tuddenham, a leading haematologist and emeritus professor at the Royal Free in London, described the sale of Factor VIII in the 1970s and 1980s as a “free for all”.
“The companies were pushing to get as much of their product bought as they could,” he said.
Prof Tuddenham said St Thomas’ had some of “the highest rates of usage of Factor VIII per patient in the country”.
“Dr Savidge was known for years for using American concentrate,” he said. “He had very well-equipped laboratories. The money must have come from commercial sources.”
Dr Savidge, who died in 2011, gained a reputation for exclusively using imported commercial Factor VIII, even though it was clear the NHS-made version was safer.
At an earlier inquiry in 2007, Dr Savidge described the UK’s Blood Products Laboratory as “antiquated” and said it had “poor manufacturing practices”.
“He used almost exclusively commercial products but he shouldn’t have done,” said Prof Liakat Parapia, former director of the Bradford Haemophilia Centre. “Because of the kickback. Not a nice man.”
Prof Parapia added that pharmaceutical companies giving hospitals money for using their higher-risk Factor VIII was widespread.
Sir Brian Langstaff, the chair of the inquiry, has ordered the Government to set up a compensation body.
‘Routine practice in the early 1980s’
A spokesman for Bayer said: “The offer of discounts, rebates and other commercial offers associated with the supply of medicines and other products to the NHS, was routine practice in the early 1980s and continues today. The benefit of such arrangements, expressly permitted in applicable legislation, accrues to the NHS and does not determine prescribing by individual healthcare professionals.”
They added that Bayer had cooperated with the Infected Blood Inquiry, saying: “Bayer is truly sorry that this tragic situation occurred.”
A spokesman for Baxter said: “We sympathise with anyone impacted by infected blood in the 1970s and 1980s. Baxter is committed to providing the highest-quality products to its patients and customers, and to conducting its business ethically and compliantly.”
The Poison Line: Life and Death in the Infected Blood Scandal by Cara McGoogan is out now.
Listen to Bed of Lies, a six-part Telegraph podcast laying bare one of the biggest medical disasters in history, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your preferred podcast app.
