"You are being stitched-up!    DUNPHY TELLS HAEMOPHILIACS The Lindsay Tribunal into AIDS deaths of haemophiliacs is "stitching-up" the Haemophilia Society, Irish radio presenter, Eamonn Dunphy, declared on his TodayFM drivetime show Friday 22nd June, 2001. "I'm exercising my right to free speech" Dunphy told his interviewee, the society's administrator, Ms. Rosemary Daly, "they are stitching you up, aren't they?" He was reacting to news that expert statements were witheld from the society for over a year; and handed over only five days before the start of the expert evidence stage of the Tribunal's inquiries, Friday 22nd June.

 Haemophiliacs did not die of HIV contracted from blood factor products, but principally from drug side-effects, an international group of scientists has claimed in a new sumission to the Lindsay Tribunal, Thursday 21st June.

The AidsMyth voluntary group based in Ireland, incorporates five Aids-rethinker scientists of international repute appointed to South African President Mbeki's Advisory Panel on HIV/AIDS.

Their submission says side-effects of steroid drugs prescribed to haemophiliacs are the same as the list of medical conditions from AIDS. Similarly, they claim that side-effects of the anti-HIV drugs prescribed to haemophiliacs cause symptoms attributed to AIDS.

Haemophilliacs can be false-positive on HIV tests according to the scientists. They provide evidence to the Tribunal that blood products could not have transmitted infectious HI virus to haemophiliacs. And they say the US Centres for Disease Control has made statements consistent with their findings.

They assert that the principal causes of observed morbidity and mortality in haemophiliac patients included the immune-suppressing effects of blood factor therapy itself; side-effects of prescribed cortico-steroids or pneumonia medication; and fatal side-effects of anti-HIV drugs erroneously prescribed as a result of incorrect HIV/AIDS diagnosis.

The submission is collectively supported by:

Dr. Harvey Bialy PhD, Mexico;
Prof. Etienne deHarven, France;
Mr. Fintan Dunne, AidsMyth.com, Ireland;
Rev. Dr. Michael Ellner, NY, USA;
Prof. Manu Kothari, Mumbai, India;
Ms. Kathy McMahon, AidsMyth.com, Ireland;
Prof. Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos, Australia;
Prof. Valendar Turner, Australia.


BACKGROUND: In April 2001, the South African Government published the first interim report of the SA Presidential Aids Advisory Panel. The report found there was "fundamental disagreement on the interpretation of the scientific and clinical data and evidence on the cause and progression of AIDS".

That was the first time any published Government report found a legitimate interpretative scientific dispute as to the role of HIV in AIDS. Earlier, an article in the South African Law Society magazine De Rebus, had commented: ".... the legal issue of whether a court ought to be entitled to assume that HIV causes Aids is in doubt."

BACKGROUND:
The Lindsay Tribunal
Tragedy Recalled in Church Street
by RTE-TV, Ireland
The Lindsay Tribunal is inquiring into the infection of more than 220 haemophiliacs with Hepatitis C and HIV from blood products that occurred mainly in the 1970s and 1980s. 75 people have died as a result of being infected - one of them had given evidence to the Tribunal shortly before dying. The Tribunal opened in May of 2000 and is holding public hearings.

The first person to give evidence was 20-year-old Karen Stephens, whose father Jerome contracted HIV from a clotting agent given to him during an operation. Karen spoke about the manner in which AIDS crippled her father, brought searing pain and ultimately killed him. She was in school at the time other children refused to play games with her in case they touched her and "caught" AIDS.

Ray Kelly explained how his 13-year-old son John died in agony from an AIDS-related illness caused by clotting agents. However, most witnesses gave evidence anonymously using pseudonyms and often behind a screen. The stigma lives on long after the diagnosis. One father told the Tribunal that it was a 'relief' when his 11-year-old son died, as he was "a pathetic little sight... so thin you'd be afraid to look at him, almost blind, his eyes were like golfballs, his body like something out of Auschwitz. For me it was a relief when he died... the little lad wouldn't suffer anymore".

While most clotting agents were imported from the United States, the BTSB conceded that 2 batches of clotting agent that it made had infected 7 haemophiliacs with HIV, 5 of whom have died. The Tribunal also heard that decision-making at Pelican House was slow, the BTSB was effectively bankrupt, critical documents were shredded and a senior employee had a conflict of interest. There were also suggestions from the Haemophilia Society's legal team that profit was put before product safety. Further damning revelations included the fact that the BTSB never ensured that patients it infected were informed.

The Tribunal heard that an HIV test was introduced in October 1985. However, it was not until 1989 that the BTSB introduced a "lookback", the process whereby the previous donations of a donor who tested positive for HIV would be checked.

Even when "lookback" was introduced, it wasn't made retrospective. The Tribunal learned that this was important after hearing about a woman who received a blood donation in 1985 from a donor who tested positive in 1986. As there was no "lookback", the woman did not find out that she was HIV positive until 1996 and then by accident.

In November, the Tribunal heard further evidence from people who either contracted HIV or Hepatitis C from blood products or were related to them. In one case, a blood sample was taken from a haemophiliac to conduct an HIV test without his knowledge or permission. On the same day, the doctor advised the man that it would OK to try and have a family. The man's wife told the Tribunal that the test was HIV positive, but they were not informed for 7 months, by which time she was 5 months pregnant. Her husband died from an AIDS-related illness, but she did not contract the virus.

There are only around 400 haemophiliacs in Ireland. More than 220 of them were infected by blood products, and 75 have died. Over the past two years, only two haemophiliacs have died as a result of their condition. While the Tribunal cannot take away the pain and loss, what the victims say repeatedly is that they want it to ensure that such a tragedy can never happen again.