A seven-year-old boy who died after being infected with HIV in the tainted blood scandal was used in “secret trials” because it was “cheaper than chimpanzees” to test on him, his parents have claimed.
Ahead of the publication of the scandal report on Monday, Jan and Colin Smith told of their anguish after their son, also called Colin, died in January 1990 after being infected with AIDS and hepatitis C from contaminated blood at the age of two years.
Sir Brian Langstaff will publish his report into the scandal on Monday after four years of evidence gathering at the Infected Blood Inquiry between 2019 and 2023.
Campaigners, including Mr and Mrs Smith, have worked tirelessly for decades to get justice for victims of the infected blood scandal and that is what they hope will happen after the report is published next week.
Smith wants those responsible for his son’s death and other victims to face criminal charges such as involuntary manslaughter, so that justice is served “appropriately and not hypothetically,” he said. News from heaven.
Colin Smith, a victim of the contaminated blood scandal (pictured aged six in 1988), died aged seven in 1990 after contracting HIV from a dose of the blood clotting protein Factor VIII.
Ahead of the publication of a report into the scandal on Monday, Jan and Colin Smith (pictured) told of their anguish over the death of their son.
He said he still has a hard time “assimilating” the idea that “I handed my son over to his murderers.”
Colin Jnr was born with haemophilia, a rare disease that affects the blood’s ability to clot and is treated with a substance called Factor VIII.
The Factor VIII given to the young man was made using the blood of prisoners, drug addicts and sex workers in the United States.
Mr and Mrs Smith told Sky News they believe their son, who weighed just 13lb when he died, was being used by doctors in “secret trials”, which led to his ultimately fatal HIV infection.
Colin was treated in the 1980s by the leading haemophilia specialist Arthur Bloom, who died in 1992.
But documents submitted to the inquiry show that Bloom’s research had huge risks that had never been explained to Colin’s parents.
The first time he entered the hospital, the young man had never been treated for his hemophilia, as shown in an investigation document. This made him useful to researchers as they could study how he reacted to new treatments.
Mr Smith said his son was “unlucky to be born at the right time” and to be a newly diagnosed and untreated haemophiliac.
He told Sky News that his son was exactly what doctors wanted because, “as the documentation says, they are cheaper than chimpanzees.” The father said that while you can only “treat a chimpanzee once,” children can be followed throughout their lives.
Mr and Mrs Smith told Sky News they believe their son, who weighed just 13lb when he died, was being used by doctors in “secret trials”, leading to his HIV infection.
Mr and Mrs Smith go through their suitcase of memories of their son Colin
Colin Jnr was born with haemophilia, a rare disease that affects the blood’s ability to clot and is treated with a substance called Factor VIII.
The first time Colin Jr. went to the hospital, the young man had never been treated for his hemophilia, an investigation document showed.
The investigation also saw a letter Bloom had written to a colleague after seeing Colin in hospital, where the doctor said he had just given the boy Factor VIII and even acknowledged the risk of him contracting hepatitis, even though he had been given given some made in Britain.
“This is something that hemophiliacs have to accept,” the letter said.
Bloom also wrote to colleagues on June 24, 1983, where he said that Factor VIII carried a risk of AIDS and that a possible case involving it had been reported.
Mr Smith asked how it could be justified that Colin was infected, despite being born in 1982, when this had been happening since the 1970s.
Mrs. Smith said she had full faith at the time that doctors were treating Colin Jr. completely in his best interests and that she was never concerned about their intentions.
Mr and Mrs Smith showed Sky News a suitcase containing memories of Colin, including the blanket he was wrapped in when he died, which “still smells like him”. Also in the case were his favorite toys and his works of art.