Blood – UK Government Cover-up

[Bob Williams]

I understand your anger and I share it, as you may read from my post. However, this is the Joke of the Week thread. You would have been better to have put your post in “Other”. As I said, this subject is not for joking about and is not suited to irony either. Reading this is enough to make anyone angry at the people who allowed it to happen:

https://tinyurl.com/y725gg89

BBC report, and watching Panorama last night:

https://tinyurl.com/ybontdn4

In the 70’s I was struck by a hit-and-run driver with a stolen car in Germany and suffered broken legs, ribs and a fractured skull, followed by 3 brain operations. I received a lot of blood in a German hospital during this time, some of which may have been my own A Rh. -. Explanation: We squaddies used to give blood to the German Red Cross (their Blood Donor agency) for free. Then I dated a German nurse, who told me we were dumb, as Germans got paid for it. So I took my Blütspenderkart to the centre on my own and found that my blood earned me money, being one of the rarer groups. (not mega-rare) So I must have got some of my own back!

Now that’s irony!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
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[keith with the teef]

whats the definition of irony?

tell the kids in the 80’s to have safe sex or they could get aids or herpatitis.

But then import infected bad blood from shooting up junk convicts from the usa and infect K’s of people etc.

[Bob Williams]

Not ironic if you had some blood during those years Keef. I had several transfusions then. Not a joke either, if you were unlucky enough to be infected. One of my mates had Hepatitis, it killed him, but slowly.

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[keith with the teef]

I’m not actually joking, I am infact real angry about the whole thing.

Some one or more heads need to role for this.

[RSB]

Moved

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Ed P]

Thanks a lot!

[Ed P]

Just in case it isn’t clear this is where the posts that were misplaced in Jokes were supposed to go.

My wife gave birth during that period and had to have a transfusion. Years later she was told not to give blood and told to immediately submit her blood for testing – then under questioning it all came out from the GP including the potential consequences for any sexual partners and children nursed during the period. A worrying time for the whole family, we were one of the lucky ones however..

[RSB]

No probs. My computers are so slow it has taken half an hour to move these so in future any postings that are placed in the wrong area or replies that go way of topic and have to be moved and deleated will result in that users profile/avatar pic being changed to some sort of idiot hat or worse!

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Bob Williams]

Thanks Lee, reinforces the point I was trying to make, but I should not have started the discussion.

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[Richard]

That was a time when a lot of things happened that later events would show would, perhaps, have been better not to have happened.

My wife had started blood derived treatments and we were later mystified to know why the treatment suddenly became ‘unavailable’, yes the same reason, suspect blood; so the treatment was banned. As Ed said, it is not a wonderful piece of news when that happens. Perhaps on the brighter side, if there is one, as she had already had been affected by earlier illness that barred her from donating blood so the doner issue did not arise.
When our first born was hatched at about 31 weeks she had a transfusion while we were living on the other side of the world so another tense time followed and never really clears. The outcome would likely have been worse without the treatment, but as the storms were breaking about blood and blood products that was less than welcome news.

So far neither of them appear to have suffered ill effects, but you never quite clear the doubts and concerns. However that said, I still understand the sequencing issues.

Find a breakthrough,

then  roll it out,

then find the side effects/possible consequences;

it is the what then happens which really decides how things roll on. The genies can never stuck get back into their bottles, however, timely actions can make a limited difference. Where due diligence was not applied, timely consequences are required.

I neighbour recently died sixty years later as a consequence of hepatitis when he was a child, caught from a swimming pool. That sort of refreshes that parts you never want refreshing. He spent several years suffering- it gets painful on so many levels.

[Richard]

I wanted to add that I knew about the blood plasma issue affecting haemophiliacs a number of years back so I was surprised that new issues were still being flushed out. It shows how bad my memory is, I thought it had been investigated years back, so I find it less than satisfactory that unresolved issues are still to be cleared.

[Bob Williams]

It’s a part of what always happens in cases involving similar disasters in this country Richard. Instead of investigating the events, the first reaction is to instigate a cover up. It starts with the officials directly involved and winds up in the top layers of the Civil Service, who advise the government of the day how best to bury it. Then they wait for people to age and die, in order to (a) obfuscate the issue with time (b) design & manufacture better lies (c) reduce the amount of potential compensation. Many varieties of experts and expertise are called upon to blur the issue and mislead the public.

Freedom of Information? Information has to be true and accurate, before it can be truly ‘Free’. I am not being cynical, just realistic.

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[Spedley]

I tried to give blood but they don’t want it, anyone who has had a transfusion since 1980 isn’t able to because of the slight risk of CJD.

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[Ed P]

Spedley wrote:

I tried to give blood but they don’t want it, anyone who has had a transfusion since 1980 isn’t able to because of the slight risk of CJD.

That may be the official line but they were probably more worried at the time about Hepatitis. It costs quite a lot to screen for all the various variants and iirc Hep C testing has only become available since the 1990s. Before that date there was am estimated Hepatitis risk of 30% if you received US sourced blood.

Nasty range of diseases: they can lead to things like liver cancer many years later. Hepatitis reached endemic proportions in New Zealand and I remember having to be screened as part of a national campaign (only screened for A&B at that time).

[The Duke]

Still the same today ed, I give blood, and one of the questions on the form each 8 weeks is did you get a blood transfusion  in the 80s, or words to that effect.

Or it was and thankfully they dropped the form fulling every session, and gone to an android based tablet system. In Wales at least. Not sure if England blood system has gone paperless. Hopefully so as it always seemed a waste of papers and admin time filling in the exact form, time and time again, not to mention, the triage having to check all your identical answers each time.

Now you you sign to say noting changed iirc. I don’t read it tbh, just sign in and sign. Its a much speeded up system than it was 18 months ago. You now only need to speak to the triage nurse if you tick that something changed. If all is the same you get the green light and pushed to a bed.

[JayCeeDee]

I regularly gave blood when I was working for BT, we had sessions organised at our workplace and were given time out to attend. That continued until ’93 when I left BT.

From then on, I either had to get myself to a hospital ( leaving the wife on her own for three hours without the van ) or to the Town Hall on specific dates and at specific times. Being self-employed, that was just not practical, so I lapsed. When I tried again recently I found out that if you’ve had Cancer, you’re no longer eligible, even if you’re cured.

Quote from HERE – “The guidelines say that you can’t donate blood if you have had cancer because there is a theoretical risk that a cancer cell could be passed on in the blood. There is no evidence to prove that this is possible. It is very much a safety measure.”

I don’t know whether to be comforted by their approach, or annoyed.

[Bob Williams]

It is still true that you cannot give blood to the UK Donor Service if you had blood in the ’80’s. Both myself and SWMBO used to donate and can no longer do that. Returning to the time I gave to the German service and was paid for it: –

I first looked at it as simply an ‘earner’, I was a Squaddie and always needed money! Then I thought about it – if a British serviceman was injured in BAOR and needed blood, it was obtained from the German Red Cross, who ran the service. BFG and the British taxpayer, had to pay for that blood. Considering that all over BAOR, squaddies were being asked to donate blood to help “Anglo-German relations”, this bloody-minded Brit thought that was wrong, so I started earning from my donation instead. Many more followed and I was marched in front of the Brigade Major (“The Sherrif”) He tried to make me return to a voluntary donation. My answer is one I never forget: “Sir, with the greatest respect, I could spend my blood for the last time on a battlefield. It is my blood and my body and I have the right of every free Briton to do with it it as I wish.”

I rehearsed that speech with my mates, it was famous. My Sgt. Major marched me in and he could hardly hold his face straight.

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[Richard]

Bob, I agree your approach to that matter. Still the cost of blood when it arrives at a patient is hugely increased by all the processing, testing and the like that needs to happen these days. Some places are against paying ‘doners’ as they see an incentive for unsuitable applicants to come ‘just for the money’ and lie about their status. To be honest I used to sell blood in the Middle East, some times according to schedule, 4 times a year and at other times because I was called out at night to answer a shortage, I have a less common but by no means rare type.*As a side effect I saw some off colour events, with some of the ‘vegetarian residents’, trying to offer relations to give blood when a family member was in trouble. The words of the staff still ring in my mind as they tried to point out some of those offered were in such poor shape, they needed a transfusion rather than being able to supply blood.

*The health service ran a sort of ‘take one’, ‘give one’ request process, when patients needed transfusions to try to encourage greater supplies. Ex-pats were a prime source at the time, so much so that the local paper even ran off colour jokes about alcohol levels in donations, not really a joking matter then or now.

My donation history was back in the 1980s, not been since as events including transcontinental moves, became the overriding controller. Now the events still come thick and fast, but I am too old anyway – I did check a little while back.

Yes Ed quote; Nasty range of diseases: they can lead to things like liver cancer many years later. Hepatitis reached endemic proportions in New Zealand and I remember having to be screened as part of a national campaign (only screened for A&B at that time).

That is what killed my neighbour a year or two back, unclean swimming pool water killed him 60 years after his first problem., it is not a nice way to go.

Can hepatitis risks be reduced by modern heat treating, I understand that is part of the (expensive) treatment some blood fractions can undergo?

[Ed P]

“Can hepatitis risks be reduced by modern heat treating, I understand that is part of the (expensive) treatment some blood fractions can undergo? ”

If you are thinking of the Mirasol method, that only reduces the nasties. If you search on irradiation research no-one appears willing to state that pathogens can be eliminated.

 

[Bob Williams]

Richard, the story of your neighbour and the swimming pool infection, reminds me of TWO of my own neighbours. The first was a young girl who lived a few doors away in my former  Notts village: she contracted polio an died very young, eventually traced to this Lido:

https://tinyurl.com/yc4go95p

This piece of information appears to have been forgotten by the nostalgic news article! Reading further down, I recall the girl thrown from her horse. I cannot recall her name, but have a hazy recollection that she was a colliery official’s daughter. Most of my family and myself, bathed in that Lido at some point when I was young. We all had a lucky escape, as there a few more who caught that horrible disease from the water. Locally, it was a very famous attraction, undone by the Coalfield Curse of mining subsidence, not by the Polio epidemic.

Second-case neighbours lived next door to us here when we first came. Both had contracted Polio themselves, from somewhere in their South East hometown, and met during treatment. They were called Terry and June, which should ring some BBC Light Programme bells amongst those here of my generation! June was in a wheelchair and Terry walked with a pronounced limp. They would go on regular holidays to South Africa, Canada and Australia or New Zealand, every year, am amazing couple. Terry had done National Service in the RAF as groundcrew and no one caught the Polio connection at his medical. When his service was due to end, he asked to re enlist and was given another, more involved medical inspection. Horrified at the results, they realised that he should never have been called up and offered him a sum in compensation. Displaying the intelligence I always found in him, Terry opted for a Pension instead. He must have drawn £thousands from that pension over the years, until his death in Rutland, in his late 80’s. Once, when they went to South Africa, I asked him in joke to bring me back an Ostrich egg. Sure enough, I got one! Empty, painted and varnished with the pictures of all the Big Game animals. It has pride of place on my shelf. He was a guy whose gentle, self – deprecating humour I miss.

 

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