Hemophilia

I have Hepatitis C my brother had HIV and Hepatitis C and died over a decade ago. I myself am sick and will probably die one day soon. As a child I would lose teeth and sometimes my gums would not stop bleeding as a result of losing a tooth. So I would be brought to the local hospital in Fairfax Virgina and the doctors would give me blood called Cryoprcepitate or Factor to help my blood to clot. During the time in which it was not law to screen blood products for viruses like HIV or Hepatitis C. It was more than likely one of these transfusions that infected me with Hepatitis C if not all of them.

As a youth my family moved to Nashville Tennessee for the free health care, called TennCare. At the time we were broke and having to pay for experimental medicines for my brother HIV because insurance would not cover them being they were experimental. To be covered on the TennCare insurance we would have to go to a treatment faculity once a year in order to be checked and examined to stay on the insurance, which was fine and dandy with me. When I first was seen at Vanderbilt Childrens Hosptial in 1992 I had blood drawn and other tests preformed while there getting examined, turns out I had tested postive for Hepatitis C then at age 14.

So after going to Vanderbilt one year not feeling well as an adult I think in 2002 I was told I had Hepatitis C and it was not from any of there blood products I receieved from them because I had tested positive when I first came to the hosptial back in 1992. So I asked why was I not told about this back then? The nurse told me there was no need to tell or law requiring them to tell me because there was no cure at the time. I was blown away, lost for words, and muttered something to the affect of what do I do know and went home and cryed.

I thought about all the people I may have infected over time becasue I was not told of my infection and under the impression I had a clean bill of health not to mention I knew what dieing because of Hepatitis C meant after seeing so many people in my community die from it. So I started thinking about why this hospital would not tell children that they were poisined? And how many other children at this hospital are not being told and have not been told they contracted a leathal virus?

I was never able to sue Vanderbilt because of the statute of limitations laws here in Tennessee require you bring a lawsuit within 1 year of the incident which I did not do and also was not able to sue the blood product mannufacturing companies because of laws put into place during the 60s and 70s called blood shield laws which states for legal purposes blood is not considered a product but a service much like getting a tattoe so no one can sue the people who collect it or sell it under product liabilty claims.

So here I sit thinking about my next move and what to do i can not sue i can not afford treatment and will die one day soon, let me ask you something what would you do in this situation?

Japan to apologizes for tainted blood
from yahoo news / ap

By YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press Writer Fri Dec 28, 5:36 AM ET

TOKYO - Hundreds of Japanese who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood products hammered out a deal with legislators Friday that includes a government apology and monetary compensation.

The agreement is a landmark victory in the five-year legal battle of some 200 hepatitis C patients, who had filed lawsuits in several courts, accusing the government of approving the blood products while knowing of their possible dangers.

The blood-clotting agents were administered to stop bleeding during surgery and childbirth from the 1970s to the early 1990s — infecting possibly thousands more people with hepatitis C, a chronic, potentially lethal blood-borne virus that can cause liver ailments, including cancer and liver failure.

The government is suspected of irresponsibly continuing to approve the products in Japan, long after they were discontinued in the U.S. in 1977 because of the dangers. Outbreaks in Japan of hepatitis C linked to the administering of such drugs were reported as early as the mid-1980s, and the risks are believed to have been widely known in medical circles.

Under the new agreement between the plaintiffs’ attorneys and a panel of lawmakers, a bill will be passed to offer compensation to about 1,000 people with hepatitis C, earmarking from $106,000 to $354,000 per person, depending on the severity of their ailments, a Health Ministry official said.

He requested anonymity, as is customary here when an official is not the spokesman. The bill will be worded to admit government responsibility and offer an apology, he said.

The plaintiffs earlier rejected a proposed out-of-court settlement because it did not include an acknowledgment of government responsibility — the biggest sticking point in the ongoing negotiations.

Their tearful appeals before cameras dominated TV and other media coverage in Japan in recent months — swaying public opinion to their side while sending the popularity polls of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda plunging.

Earlier this month, Fukuda did an about-face and apologized to the plaintiffs.

Although Japan prides itself on strict regulations over food, pharmaceuticals and other products, the nation has also had its share of scandals that have highlighted ineptitude and irresponsibility at high places.

Japan was mired in a similarly stunning scandal over blood products in the 1990s, which were tainted with the HIV virus but were approved by the government for routine use for hemophiliacs — even after reports of their risks surfaced. About 1,800 people were infected, and hundreds died.

As many as 10,000 Japanese are believed to have been infected by hepatitis C through the tainted products, but that number could be as many as 2 million, Japanese media reports said.

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Another news story in this issue:
from yahoo / AP

Japan addresses tainted blood victims

By CHISAKI WATANABE, Associated Press Writer Sun Dec 23, 4:37 AM ET

TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Sunday his ruling bloc will submit legislation providing aid to about 1,000 people exposed to hepatitis C through defective blood-clotting products sold by pharmaceutical companies.
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“I hope the bill will be passed quickly and want everyone to feel relieved soon,” Fukuda said at the Prime Minister’s Office, as he seeks to resolve the scandal that has prompted public anger.

Fukuda did not give any details about the legislation.

About 200 patients have filed lawsuits in five courts across Japan, demanding compensation from the government and drug makers Nihon Pharmaceutical Co., Mitsubishi Pharma Corp. and the latter’s subsidiary Benesis Corp. Japanese media say about 800 others are expected to file suit.

The plaintiffs say they contracted hepatitis C while using defective blood-clotting medicines, mostly in the 1980s, and claim the government and the drug-makers continued to use the medicines, despite their knowledge that they were potentially contaminated.

Four of the five courts have ordered the defendants — the government and drug makers — to compensate dozens of patients and the Osaka High Court issued a settlement proposal in November. The two sides have since attempted to reach an out-of-court settlement, although negotiations have bogged down over how the plaintiffs would be compensated.

“We have always wanted uniform compensation after they acknowledge their responsibility so I am very glad that the prime minister and the government accept our wish,” said Satoko Kuwata, one of the plaintiffs.

Hepatitis C is a viral disease that affects the liver and is often transmitted through contact with infected blood.

An estimated 2 million Japanese have contracted the disease, many through tainted blood products, media reports say.

From yahoo news / AP

By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct 1, 5:44 PM ET

TORONTO - A judge acquitted three doctors, a New Jersey company and a former Red Cross official of criminal charges Monday in a tainted-blood scandal that infected thousands of Canadians with HIV or hepatitis and resulted in more than 3,000 deaths.

Toronto Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto ruled that the defendants did not show conduct displaying wanton and reckless disregard in the use of the blood and that there was no marked departure from the standards of a reasonable person.

“The conduct examined in detail over one and a half years confirms reasonable and responsible and professional actions and responses during this difficult time,” she said. “The allegations of criminal conduct on the part of these men and this corporation were not only unsupported by the evidence, they were disproved.

“The events here were tragic,” the judge said. “However, to assign blame where none exists is to compound the tragedy.”

John Plater of the Canadian Hemophilia Society expressed bewilderment at the verdict, questioning how the judge could suggest that the defendants’ actions “were somehow professional and reasonable.”

“If you, on the one hand, have a study that says there’s a problem, and on the other hand have a study that says maybe there isn’t a problem, any reasonable person takes the product off the market. They didn’t. People were infected, and people died,” Plater said. “How that could be considered reasonable behavior is beyond us.”

The case involved blood products produced by New Jersey-based Armour Pharmaceutical Co. in the 1980s and early 1990s that turned out to be infected. Also charged were Dr. Roger Perrault of the Red Cross; Dr. John Furesz and Dr. Donald Wark Boucher, formerly of Canada’s Health Protection Branch, and Dr. Michael Rodell, a former vice president of Armour.

Perrault pleaded not guilty to criminal negligence causing bodily harm for allegedly giving hemophilia patients an HIV-infected blood-clotting product.

The other doctors and the drug company also pleaded not guilty. Lawyers argued that prosecutors didn’t present enough evidence to prove its case.

A second trial for Perrault is set to begin later this year in Hamilton, Ontario, where he will face more criminal charges stemming from allegations that the Red Cross and its senior officials failed to take adequate measures to screen blood donors.

The Canadian Red Cross pleaded guilty in 2005 to distributing blood tainted with HIV and hepatitis C and was fined 5,000 Canadian dollars, which is now about $5,000. The Red Cross apologized and provided 1.5 million Canadian dollars for a scholarship fund and research project aimed at reducing medical errors.

Responsibility for Canada’s blood supply for all provinces except Quebec was later transferred from the Canadian Red Cross to another entity, Canadian Blood Services. After a five-year investigation, police filed criminal charges.

Last year, the Canadian government announced a compensation package of 1 billion Canadian dollars for all those infected with hepatitis C from the tainted blood, expanding a previous program that excluded thousands of people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS3mhjt7TrY

What is a Hemophiliac?

A person who is affect with Hemophilia. I am a hemophiliac and this blog is about my communnities struggle with Hepatitis and HIV and other blood born diseases. I did this because none of the current organizations are telling the truth to the communnity and are activly covering up thier role in the mass infection of my communnity and yours.

What is Hemophilia? Well from Wikipedia Hemophilia is as follows

The first record of hemophilia is in the Talmud, Jewish holy text, which states that males did not have to be circumcised if two brothers had already died from the procedure. In the 12th century, the Arab physician Albucasis wrote of a family whose males died of bleeding after minor injuries. Then, in 1803, Dr. John Conrad Otto, a Philadelphia physician, wrote an account about “a hemorrhagic disposition existing in certain families.” He recognized that the disorder was hereditary and that it affected males and rarely females.He was able to trace the disease back to a woman who settled near Plymouth in 1720. The first usage of the term “hemophilia” appears in a description of the condition written by Hopff at the University of Zurich in 1828. [1] In 1937, Patek and Taylor, two doctors from Harvard, discovered anti-hemophilic globulin.Pavlosky, a doctor from Buenos Aires, found Hemophilia A and Hemophilia B to be separate diseases by doing a lab test. This test was done by transferring the blood of one hemophiliac to another hemophiliac. The fact that this corrected the clotting problem showed that there was more than one form of hemophilia.

See main article at Haemophilia in European royalty
Hemophilia figured prominently in the history of European royalty and thus is sometimes known as “the royal disease”. Queen Victoria passed the mutation to her son Leopold and, through several of her daughters, to various royals across the continent, including the royal families of Spain, Germany, and Russia. Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, son of Nicholas II, was a descendant of Queen Victoria and suffered from haemophilia.

About 18,000 people in the United States have hemophilia. Each year, about 400 babies are born with the disorder. Hemophilia usually occurs in males and less often in females.

Females possess two X-chromosomes, whereas males have one X and one Y chromosome. Since the mutations causing the disease are recessive, a woman carrying the defect on one of her X-chromosomes may not be affected by it, as the equivalent allele on her other chromosome should express itself to produce the necessary clotting factors. However the Y-chromosome in men has no gene for factors VIII or IX. If the genes responsible for production of factor VIII or factor IX present on a male’s X-chromosome is deficient there is no equivalent on the Y-chromosome, so the deficient gene is not masked by the dominant allele and he will develop the illness.

Since a male receives his single X-chromosome from his mother, the son of a healthy female silently carrying the deficient gene will have a 50% chance of inheriting that gene from her and with it the disease; and if his mother is affected with haemophilia, he will have a 100% chance of being a haemophiliac. In contrast, for a female to inherit the disease, she must receive two deficient X-chromosomes, one from her mother and the other from her father (who must therefore be a haemophiliac himself). Hence haemophilia is far more common among males than females. However it is possible for female carriers to become mild haemophiliacs due to lyonisation of the X chromosomes. Haemophiliac daughters are more common than they once were, as improved treatments for the disease have allowed more haemophiliac males to survive to adulthood and become parents. Adult females may experience menorrhagia (heavy periods) due to the bleeding tendency.The pattern of inheritance is criss-cross type.This type of pattern is also seen in colour blindness.

As with all genetic disorders, it is of course also possible for a human to acquire it spontaneously (de novo), rather than inheriting it, because of a new mutation in one of their parents’ gametes. Spontaneous mutations account for about â…“ of all haemophilia A and 1/5 of all haemophilia B cases. Genetic testing and genetic counseling is recommended for families with haemophilia. Prenatal testing, such as amniocentesis, is available to pregnant women who may be carriers of the condition.
[edit] Probability
If a female gives birth to a haemophiliac child, she is a carrier for the disease. Until modern direct DNA testing, however, it was impossible to determine if a female with only healthy children was a carrier or not. Generally, the more healthy sons she bore, the higher the probability that she was not a carrier. If the RH factor of the born male is different from the mother, the child will not be affected.