HAEMOPHILIACS faced fresh anguish yesterday after being left out of health minister Susan Deacon's compensation settlement for patients who contracted hepatitis C from NHS blood products.
Production problems at one of the main manufacturing centres for recombinant Factor VIII - developed to protect them from blood-borne infections - mean that they will have to revert to a plasma-based clotting factor.
Although this has been treated to inactivate known viruses like hepatitis and HIV, there remains a fear - reinforced by the emergence of variant CJD - that other pathogens as yet unidentified could be present in the plasma version.
Mr Philip Dolan, chairman of the Scottish Haemophilia Forum, said the plasma version was imported from America and Germany, where there was supposedly no vCJD, but he said: ''How can we be sure there is no contamination.''
In order to eke out the reduced supplies of recombinant Factor VIII from the two Californian plants where it is made, haemophiliacs over 30 have been asked to take the plasma version.
Mr Dolan said he was ''disappointed'' that few of 317 Scottish haemophiliacs infected with hepatitis C would benefit from the new deal announced by the health minister.
Ms Deacon said health service lawyers had been ordered to settle claims by Scottish victims who contracted hepatitis C after the Consumer Protection Act came into force in 1988, in line with a ruling by the High Court in England.
Most haemophiliacs were infected by that time, before Scottish plasma was being heat-treated at temperatures high enough to kill the virus.
Only about 20 people - patients who were infected with whole blood - will benefit from the settlement.
''I welcome the fact that she has recognised the principle of compensating people who were infected in this way, but I wonder if this is just to avoid the whole question of hepatitis C going through the courts,'' said Mr Dolan.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article