'Thorough' Blood Probe Promised

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

'Thorough' Blood Probe Promised

Toronto Globe and Mail (12/23/97) P. A4
Anderssen, Erin

Abstract: On Monday, Chief Superintendent Freeman Sheppard vowed to conduct "the most thorough investigation" possible into Canada's tainted-blood scandal, but he noted that the search could take years. Freeman is the head of an eight-member Royal Canadian Mounted Police task force that will spend the next several months interviewing patients and expert witnesses, and reviewing the recently released findings of Justice Horace Krever, who said that a large number of HIV and hepatitis C infections could have been averted during the 1980s. However, a lack of time could prevent the assigning of criminal charges to officials. The most severe possible charge--criminal negligence causing death--must be made within a year and a day of the offense, and it is not yet certain how it can be applied since many of the patients died after the allowed time period. Nova Scotia AIDS activist Janet Conners, whose husband died of the disease after receiving contaminated blood, said that groups involved with the tainted-blood tragedy may try to alter that particular law, if necessary. Approximately 2,000 Canadians contracted HIV from tainted blood or blood products during the early 1980s, while another 60,000 contracted hepatitis C.

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