Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Wednesday, February 10, 1999
Former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and both his former health and former social affairs ministers are facing accusations they failed to implement available blood screening methods in the mid-l980s that would have averted over 4,000 HIV infections.
Outside the court in Paris today and also earlier in the courtroom, Gilles Perard, whose father died after receiving infected blood, said "claims of ignorance of how the AIDS virus worked cannot be an excuse."
In court, earlier, he turned to the three former government officials and said:
"You had the means to stop the pandemic...I know you didn't intend to (harm) people but your job was to produce results. You did not do your job."
And Fabius, who served as Socialist prime minister between 1984 and 1986, issued a statement saying he hoped "this necessary (cq) trial" would show the three accused men had acted "in good conscience."
He went on to say there was too little information about the disease available at the time, adding, "At this moment, first and foremost I want to remember those here and those absent who suffered."
Fabius is accused along with former Health Minister Edmond Herve and former Social Affairs Minister Georgina Dufoix in the first trial since World War II of ministers for their official acts.
Fabius is also the current National Assembly speaker.
At issue is what prosecutors claim was a specific "strategy of favoritism" to block use of a U.S.-designed AIDS screening test until a test designed by French scientists was ready.
Dufoix and Herve are also blamed for France's policy of using non- heated blood products on 4,500 hemophiliacs.
The potentially lethal products were used until October 1985, in spite of orders to the contrary. Even then, to save money, remaining stocks were distributed until they ran out.
Today, Herve told reporters, "I will prove my innocence, our innocence."
If convicted, the former officials of the late President Francois Mitterrand during the mid-1980s, face up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $90,000.
Previous trials have already resulted in convictions of four former health officials, but today's trial of high officials is the first time accountability was placed so prominently in government.
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