Red Cross fined for tainted blood Will fund research and scholarships

Jan B. Wade · #1 (**permalink**) 07-01-2005, 07:44 AM

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...d=968332188774

Jul. 1, 2005. 08:21 AM
Victims move judge to tears

Red Cross fined for tainted blood
Will fund research and scholarships

TRACEY TYLER
LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER

HAMILTONâ€”Vickie Jones took her seat in the witness box and turned to the judge. "I'd like to start by showing pictures of my parents," she said. "This is my mother, Diane Jones, who died Nov. 2, 1992, and this is my father, Barry Jones, who died March 28, 1994."

During her birth in 1981, Jones explained, complications developed that required her mother to have a blood transfusion. She was unwittingly infected with the AIDS virus through tainted blood and Jones' father was later infected.

Jones, now 23, and her brother, Jake, 21, were orphaned before their teens. Yesterday, she recalled how they spent much of their childhoods helping care for their parents, cooking meals and making seemingly endless visits to hospitals, where they watched them grow "smaller and sicker and white."

"It's hard to remember them healthy, but I still remember them, which is all that matters now," said Jones, one of several victims of Canada's tainted blood tragedy who came here yesterday.

They came from as far away as Nova Scotia, British Columbia and California â€” at their own expense â€” to tell the Canadian Red Cross Society, in person, how the country's worst public health disaster has affected their lives. Nine testified in court and 150 filed written statements before Superior Court Justice James Kent sentenced the society for distributing an adulterated drug.

"This is the only opportunity I've ever been given to tell those responsible how this ... negligence has led to suffering," said Michelle Smith, whose father, John Jerrett, received tainted blood during surgery after he fell nearly six storeys from a job site in Cape Breton in 1993. He died on Oct. 19, 1999.

Six criminal charges of creating a common nuisance were withdrawn last month after the Red Cross pleaded guilty to a regulatory offence under the Food and Drugs Act, which carries a maximum $5,000 fine.

At the time, Red Cross secretary general Dr. Pierre Duplessis, in a videotaped statement played in court, offered an apology for the injury and death caused by the society's failure to screen donated blood and blood products.

More than 1,000 people in Canada acquired HIV through blood transfusions and blood products and between 10,000 and 20,000 were infected with hepatitis C.

Kent told the court yesterday that he was obligated to hold a pre-trial conference with both sides in the case to explore the possibility of resolving the charges without a trial. He said he explained that, in order to do so, the Red Cross would have to admit to culpable conduct and both sides would have to come up with a "creative" sentence with an emphasis on "restorative justice."

He accepted a joint submission yesterday that called for the Red Cross to pay the maximum fine plus another $1.5 million â€” money that doesn't include public donations â€” to fund scholarships for children affected by the tainted blood tragedy and to fund research into medical errors. Duplessis' apology for the "almost limitless" suffering of those affected was "as complete as one could contemplate," Kent said, and the $1.5 million, which "might otherwise have gone to legal fees," is now being spent on programs that might have "some benefit for society."

Together, the admission of guilt, the apology, the fine and $1.5 million contribution "hold the Canadian Red Cross Society properly accountable," he said. But many professed anger with the sentence.

"When the criminal charges against the Canadian Red Cross Society were dropped, and this sentence was agreed upon, I was judged by you, Your Honour, by Prime Minister Paul Martin, Justice Minister (Irwin) Cotler, the Ontario ministry of justice, the prosecutors John Ayre and Karen Shea to be worthless," said Janet Conners, of Hatchet Lake, N.S., whose late husband, Randy, a hemophiliac, was infected with HIV from blood products.

"I became infected with HIV through sexual relations with my husband," she said.

Jerald Freise, whose wife, Marlene, was infected with HIV during treatment for ulcerated colitis, said the Red Cross "has joined the ranks of those in history who, through their banality and neglect, have committed evil."

On the witness stand, many read poems, showed photographs, held up bottles of the pills and wept.

The impact was lost on no one.

Kent said his 23 years as a judge and training and experience as a lawyer usually allowed him to "separate my emotions from the reason and the logic the law requires" â€” until he began reading their statements.

"I have found myself frequently moved to tears," he said.

Lynn Daradich was infected with HIV through a blood transfusion to treat an iron deficiency. "I feel sometimes I am not really living, just going through the motions. My family has told me repeatedly it's not my fault," said the mother of two.

"But somehow, I can't help thinking how life would be different were it not for that fourth day in December, in 1983, when I received the tainted blood, the gift of life, from an organization I trusted."

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Red Cross fined for tainted blood Will fund research and scholarships

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