Posting this because there’s no way that US pundits won’t use the UK tainted blood scandal as a cudgel against socialized medicine:
My dad contracted hepatitis C from a blood transfusion in 1982 – in a hospital in New York. Seventeen years and two liver transplants later, it killed him, and it would be hard to overstate the suffering he endured along the way.
I’ve naively assumed for decades that it was no one’s fault. When he got sick, all they could tell him was that he had “hepatitis not A, not B” because hep C hadn’t even been identified yet, so how could anyone have known? Turns out I was wrong and I’m feeling pretty – well, I don’t actually know how to even describe it yet. This is the first I’m hearing about the WHO warning in 1953(!) about pooling donated plasma due to the risk of hepatitis transmission. It’s the first time I’m learning that doctors knew about HIV transmission through transfusions as early as the 1970s. (Fun fact: In 1992, when Arthur Ashe announced he had contracted HIV through a transfusion, also during heart surgery, we considered ourselves lucky that our dad “only” had hep C. I’m feeling a little less lucky right about now.)
Anyways, at this point, I’m kind of tipsy and should stop writing. But let’s just be clear: whatever the shortcomings of the NHS, it’s not their problem alone. They apparently bought a lot of that plasma from the US. Fucking hell… There just isn’t enough cynicism in the world to measure up to the reality we live in.
#hepatitis #aids #hiv #nhs
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/happened-uks-infected-blood-scandal-inquiry-report-revealed-110371481