Blood-Clotting Drug Manufacturer Wins Suit Brought by Hemophiliacs With AIDS

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Blood-Clotting Drug Manufacturer Wins Suit Brought by Hemophiliacs With AIDS

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (12/18/97) P. C3
Bryant, Tim

Abstract: On Wednesday, a St. Louis, MO, Circuit Court jury rejected three hemophiliacs' claims that Alpha Therapeutics should pay damages to them for the HIV infection they contracted as a result of using allegedly contaminated blood-clotting products. This cleared the company of responsibility for the patients' infections. In court, defense lawyer Phil Beck had argued that the drug maker had done the most it could with the available knowledge, and he suggested that the three plaintiffs had been infected with HIV before it was discovered that heat-treating the blood products killed the virus. The plaintiffs had decided not to participate in a $600 million nationwide settlement made earlier this year, under which Alpha and three other drug makers paid each infected plaintiff hemophiliac $100,000.

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