Decades on, victims of the UK’s contaminated blood scandal still seek justice
More than 4,000 people with haemophilia in the UK have contracted HIV or hepatitis C, and in some cases both, from contaminated blood products imported from the US in the 1970s and 1980s. Patients who already lived with a rare and severe disorder received the infected drug derived from blood donations of up to 40,000 people, including prisoners and drug users.
Only decades later, after hundreds had died as a direct result of contamination, were victims and their families given a chance to find the truth behind the contaminated blood scandal. In April 2019, a Public Inquiry opened, hearing victim testimonies around the country. RTD travels to the UK to hear from infected blood victims and campaigners seeking answers and desperate to know why, and how, the tragedy was allowed to happen.