Ade Goodyear was 15 when he was told he had contracted HIV. Like about 30,000 other NHS patients – including more than 300 children – who were given blood transfusions or commercial blood products before 2019, he was infected by contaminated blood. Some patients got HIV and hepatitis C from blood transfusions after childbirth or other medical procedures. Ade was infected with HIV at the medical centre of his school.
Pupils at his Treloar’s college, which had a specialist haemophilia unit, were among those given injections of a blood plasma product called factor VIII concentrate. Concerns had been raised a decade before by the World Health Organization because it was a commercial product that mixed plasma from tens of thousands of often high-risk donors. If one had an infection such as HIV, it could contaminate the whole batch.
Andy Evans was diagnosed with haemophilia as a baby. He was injecting himself with factor VIII before he was four years old and says his parents were never told the risks. He contracted HIV from it at age six. His parents were not told for four years. His two brothers, who also had haemophilia, died after being given contaminated blood. When Andy later realised that many people knew the product was dangerous he raised the alarm. For decades Andy and other survivors have campaigned for recognition and accountability for what they went through. They were ignored and dismissed.
A six-year public inquiry into the NHS’s biggest treatment scandal will publish its final report on Monday. Andy and Ade – who were among the 380 people to be infected as children – tell Helen Pidd why it has taken so long for the truth to come out and what it has been like to fight for justice for so long.
Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images
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