http://www.hcvadvocate.org/news/news...Rev-103.html#6
Red Cross Fined $5,000 for Blood Sicknesses
SourceURL:http://www.herald.ns.ca
By JOHN GILLIS Health Reporter and The Canadian Press
Hep C victim 'can't see any victory' in society's guilty plea, apology
The Canadian Red Cross faces a fine of $5,000 for distributing tainted blood that infected tens of thousands of people with HIV and hepatitis C.
The charity pleaded guilty Monday in Hamilton to violating the Food and Drug Act by distributing bad blood products in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Charges of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and common nuisance were withdrawn in exchange for the guilty plea.
A joint submission by defence and Crown lawyers also includes a $1.5-million payment to be divided between a medical research project and post-secondary scholarships for family members of those affected.
"I can't see any victory of any kind in this at all," said Bruce DeVenne of Lower Sackville, who got hepatitis C in 1986 from clotting products used to treat a bleeding disorder.
He said the Red Cross's assets should be seized and divided among the victims.
Mr. DeVenne, who said scholarships are of no use to him and other victims whose children are long past university, said the deal flies in the face of the Red Cross slogan, We're There When Disaster Strikes.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"They've slithered through every loophole they could and hidden behind every lawyer they could to avoid liability."
Dr. Pierre Duplessis, the secretary general of the Red Cross, apologized to victims Monday in a videotaped statement played in Ontario Superior Court.
"Canadian Red Cross Society is deeply sorry for the injury and death . . . for the suffering caused to families and loved ones of those who were harmed," he said. "We accept responsibility through our plea for having distributed harmful products for those that rely on us for their health."
Because he was infected in 1986, Mr. DeVenne falls within the window of a 1999 compensation agreement. But he hoped the court would award victims more.
"I took the apology and I went over to Superstore. . . . I couldn't even get a can of soup with it," he said. "People need money. They have to pay their mortgages, they have to support their families, they have to pay for their drugs."
The judge accepted the lawyers' submissions but won't formally deliver his sentence until June 30, after he consults the victims and their families. The $5,000 fine is the maximum allowed under the Food and Drug Act.
The guilty plea doesn't acknowledge those who were secondarily infected by others who received tainted blood, said Janet Conners of Hatchet Lake.
Her late husband, Randy, who had hemophilia, contracted HIV from bad blood and unknowingly passed the virus to her.
"I felt more represented or included with the original charge of public nuisance," she said.
Ms. Conners, who has since remarried, said she feels the guilty plea will strengthen the present and future accountability of the current blood system by demonstrating that consequences will follow bad decisions.
But she said the agency's charitable status probably earned it a lighter penalty.
"If a corporation distributed cyanide, I don't think people would settle for an apology and a donation to a university and a guilty plea," she said. "Approximately 2,000 people were infected with HIV. Those who haven't died will."
Prosecutor John Ayre said the proposed sentence was reasonable given that the Red Cross no longer collects or distributes blood and is a humanitarian organization.
None of the funds involved will come from donations but from the agency's own internal resources, Mr. Ayre said.
"The apology is as complete as one could contemplate," he said. "The Red Cross has now said it is sorry and responsible for its actions."
That was some comfort to William Goucher of Round Hill, Annapolis County, who was infected with hepatitis C during open heart surgery in 1985.
"At least they've admitted they were guilty, which they wouldn't before," he said.
Mr. Goucher didn't know he was infected until the Red Cross warned him seven years ago to get tested. The disease has been dormant for 20 years, but blood tests last month showed his liver enzymes were beginning to rise.
"It's like living with a time bomb," he said.
Mr. Goucher has never received any compensation.
More than 1,000 Canadians became infected with blood-borne HIV, and up to 20,000 others contracted hepatitis C after receiving tainted blood products in the 1980s and early 1990s.
About 3,000 people had died by 1997, and the death toll has grown, but recent estimates were not available.
John Playter, a spokesman for the Canadian Hemophilia Society, called the admission historic because it was the first time anyone had acknowledged that laws were broken and that the tainted blood disaster wasn't just a terrible accident.
Hemophiliac James Kreppner, 43, of Toronto was hit with a terrible double whammy.
"I needed blood transfusions in the 1980s, and those transfusions infected me with both hepatitis C and HIV," he said.
"Many of my friends were also infected, and two-thirds of them are deceased."
But Mr. Kreppner said he felt satisfied that at least something was done to rectify the mistakes of the past.
"I'm pleased, and in particular, that there's an apology to the victims because in the past, the Red Cross treated this as though it were some natural disaster that it had no hand in and wasn't responsible for," he said.
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