It wasn't just haemophiliacs Leah my father was given a contaminated blood transfusion in 1978 in the Glasgow Royal infirmary, he became a Hep C carrier from those transfusions died in 1981 a shell of a man looked very much what we later learned as an Aids victim. I am sure he was not the only one, only problem is the NHS only keep medical records for 3 years after the death. We were told it had to be a closed coffin, we were not allowed a traditional Irish wake, again were were advised to have a cremation even though there was a family plot at St Kentigern's cemetery in Glasgow. I'm sure there will be many people who have lost a family member but never questioned why
Scotland was self sufficient in Blood and Blood Products during that period including factor 8 but Yorkhill decided to source from USA than Scotland.
The source of the majority of Scottish Infections was Scottish donated blood not the USA (source of Yorkhill infections).Factor 8 was made from pooled blood so even if 99 donations were uninfected and only 1 was infected, the whole batch was infected.
Use of questionnaires on lifestyle reduces risk but doesn’t eliminate it, sidelining donations from ‘Risky’ individuals, reduces risk but doesn’t eliminate it.
The medical profession failed in conjunction with the government to take the lead and get the public to understand ‘Risk’.
The real issue which hasn’t been really raised is that since no test was available to differentiate between infected donations and uninfected therefore the only 100% safe method was to not give blood or blood products.
Imagine the fall out of letting people bleed to death because you don’t have a guaranteed disease free source of blood or blood products.
A choice of Death Now or live for many more years with the risk of a serious infection with life challenging consequences of somewhere between 0 to 100% happening sometime in the future.
That was the unstated and unexplained choice during that period.
I’m sorry but I find the premise of this piece ridiculous. I am a pro-Indy Scot too, but portraying ourselves as exceptional victims of all things Union only acts to subtly reinforce stereotypes of us being somehow incapable of agency. More specifically, Scottish victims of this scandal have been no more or less deceived or injured than victims elsewhere in the UK. If you have a readership for this stuff I suppose I should just say good luck to you etc, but really I think self-pitying exceptionalism of this sort is damaging to the cause.
What really pisses me off in all of these scandals is that no-one ever goes to jail for what are obviously criminal actions.
It wasn't just haemophiliacs Leah my father was given a contaminated blood transfusion in 1978 in the Glasgow Royal infirmary, he became a Hep C carrier from those transfusions died in 1981 a shell of a man looked very much what we later learned as an Aids victim. I am sure he was not the only one, only problem is the NHS only keep medical records for 3 years after the death. We were told it had to be a closed coffin, we were not allowed a traditional Irish wake, again were were advised to have a cremation even though there was a family plot at St Kentigern's cemetery in Glasgow. I'm sure there will be many people who have lost a family member but never questioned why
Scotland was self sufficient in Blood and Blood Products during that period including factor 8 but Yorkhill decided to source from USA than Scotland.
The source of the majority of Scottish Infections was Scottish donated blood not the USA (source of Yorkhill infections).Factor 8 was made from pooled blood so even if 99 donations were uninfected and only 1 was infected, the whole batch was infected.
Use of questionnaires on lifestyle reduces risk but doesn’t eliminate it, sidelining donations from ‘Risky’ individuals, reduces risk but doesn’t eliminate it.
The medical profession failed in conjunction with the government to take the lead and get the public to understand ‘Risk’.
The real issue which hasn’t been really raised is that since no test was available to differentiate between infected donations and uninfected therefore the only 100% safe method was to not give blood or blood products.
Imagine the fall out of letting people bleed to death because you don’t have a guaranteed disease free source of blood or blood products.
A choice of Death Now or live for many more years with the risk of a serious infection with life challenging consequences of somewhere between 0 to 100% happening sometime in the future.
That was the unstated and unexplained choice during that period.
I’m sorry but I find the premise of this piece ridiculous. I am a pro-Indy Scot too, but portraying ourselves as exceptional victims of all things Union only acts to subtly reinforce stereotypes of us being somehow incapable of agency. More specifically, Scottish victims of this scandal have been no more or less deceived or injured than victims elsewhere in the UK. If you have a readership for this stuff I suppose I should just say good luck to you etc, but really I think self-pitying exceptionalism of this sort is damaging to the cause.