Compiled by Martin Flynn
Justice denied to victims
of blood scandal
Ireland
has ruled out legal action against US manufacturers of blood products tainted
with hepatitis C and HIV.
Irish health minister Mary Heaney said legal advice suggested that such a
claim would not succeed.
“I think for the state to pursue legal action with no possibility of
winning would be dishonest in the extreme,” Heaney said.
About 250 of Eire’s haemophiliacs contracted either or both hepatitis
C or HIV as a result of receiving contaminated blood products in the 1980s
bought by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service from the US.
Ninety-one of the Irish haemophiliacs infected from the tainted blood products
have subsequently died either from Aids or hepatitis C.
“We’re disgusted it has taken this government eight years to promise
they would seek justice and ultimately to deliver nothing; hiding behind the
catcall excuse of legal advice,” responded an angry Brian O’Mahony,
president of the Irish Haemophiliac Society.
In 2002, the Irish government agreed to pay $90 million in compensation to
haemophiliacs who contracted diseases by receiving contaminated blood products.
Meanwhile, the Canadian government has agreed to pay around $960 million to
more than 5,000 people who contracted hep C through transfusions. Tens of
thousands of blood transfusion recipients in Canada contracted HIV or hep
C in the 1980s and more than 3,000 Canadians have subsequently died.
Renee Daurio, who caught hep C from a blood transfusion in 1979, told CBC
TV: “No amount of money can bring back your health. No amount of money
will bring those lost years back.”
Three Canadian doctors, including the former head of the country’s Red
Cross Society’s blood transfusion service, and the US company that provided
the tainted blood are currently on trial for criminal negligence, causing
bodily harm and endangering the public.
The trail is expected to last until 2007 but if convicted the accused could
face up to 10 years in prison.
HIV activist & author dies
Author, professor and HIV/Aids advocate Eric Rofes died suddenly from a heart
attack in Provincetown, Massachusetts last month.
A former director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, Rofes wrote 12
books about HIV and the gay community, most famously Dry Bones Breathe: Gay
Men Creating Post-Aids Identities and Cultures.
Rofes courted controversy by comparing gay men living in the era of HIV/Aids
to survivors of the Holocaust. He also suggested gay men should move on from
the crisis mentality of the 1980s.
Iran leads the way in HIV - unless you’re gay
Iran, well known for its abuse of gay people, has been hailed as a leader
in HIV prevention in the Middle East.
Iranians caught drinking alcohol are often flogged and homosexuals are hanged,
yet even in the country’s notoriously secretive prison system, condoms
and syringes are now available.
This progress is at odds with its image as a country ruled by ayatollahs with
deeply rooted and highly conservative religious values.
UNAIDS country coordinator Dr Hamid Setayesh said: “Iran now has one
of the best prison programmes for HIV not just the region, but in the world.
They’re passing out condoms and syringes in prison. In the whole world,
there aren’t more than six or seven countries doing that.”
Officially, the number of Iranians with HIV is around 12,000, though health
workers believe the figure to be nearer 70,000.
The government spends about $30 million on HIV prevention, is promoting research
and providing a model for HIV prevention for Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan,
Sudan and other Muslim countries.
Dr Araah Alaei, one of Iran’s top Aids researchers, said: “I told
my colleagues in the United Arab Emirates, ‘You’re not more rigid
than us... If we have a prevention programme, why don’t you?’”
Nevertheless, stigma still results in shame and isolation. Iranians are hesitant
to tell relatives and co-workers about their diagnosis, for fear of being
fired from their jobs or driven from their homes.
Ukraine
learns from UK on HIV at work
Andrew Little (3rd left), programme director of the Ensuring Positive Futures
at UKC, and conference organiser David Pieper (4th left), visited Kiev last
month to collaborate with Ukranian HIV organisations.
They met Volodymyr Zhovtyak (left) of the All Ukranian Network of People Living
with HIV, Volodymyr Kondrachuk (2nd right) of the EU, Olga Sova (right) network
programme director, and Terry White (2nd right), a policy adviser on HIV in
the Ukraine. The visit was part of an EU project to provide technical assistance
to the Commonwealth of Independent States. www.e-pf.org.uk
Millions of kids at risk from HIV
Millions of children in the world’s poorest countries are vulnerable
to HIV infection because of exploitation and discrimination, a new study has
warned.
Plan International says many young people cannot choose safe sexual behaviour
due to malnutrition, poverty and coercion, as well as social and cultural
practices.
And governments and aid agencies should do more to help children protect themselves
against HIV.
Around 2.3 million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV, few have
access to any form of treatment and 1,800 children become infected every day.
An estimated 24 million children will be orphaned by HIV by 2010, making them
more vulnerable to poverty and exploitation.
“There’s a naïve impression that if you just educate people
about HIV it will take care of everything,” said Plan’s chief
executive Tom Miller: “But there are a lot of kids out there who really
don’t have choices.”
The report highlights how many young girls who are poor and hungry have unprotected
sex with older men infected with HIV to get money for food. And young boys
are also pressurised into having unsafe sex.
“Tradition, gender inequality and social relationships severely limit
the choices young people make,” the report states.
Miller called on the international community to focus aid on the family.
“Focus on the family. Focus particularly on the child. Focus on prevention
as well as treatment. Focus on transition after parents die, because they
do die. It doesn’t mean focus any less on finding a vaccine or getting
antiretrovirals to a larger proportion of the population.”
“Young people were told to adopt the ABC model (of abstinence, be faithful
and condom use) to prevent HIV infection,” said Plan International’s
Sarah Hendriks: “But in much of sub-Saharan Africa, where Aids is rife,
young girls are still forced into marriage with older men who may have had
several sexual partners.”
Deborah Jack, chief executive of the UK’s National Aids Trust, said
not enough was being done for children.
“The international community must, as a matter of urgency, address the
two evils which are making children so vulnerable to HIV - poverty and the
denial of human rights.”
Charged with having HIV drugs
Former UKC board member Martin Leigh (pictured) was arrested, detained and
charged with possession of HIV drugs in Johannesburg in June.
Leigh’s apartment was raided by police and he was detained after the
discovery of his anti-HIV medications. He was held in appalling conditions
for several hours. His court case has yet to be resolved as PN went to press.
Words
“Of the 23 (US) states that currently have HIV transmission
laws, the vast majority make it a crime for HIV positive people to have sex
without first disclosing their status, regardless of condom use or whether
transmission occurred.”
Report in ‘Aids and Behaviour’, from www.aidsmap.com
“Women who have sex with women face the lowest risk of contracting
HIV in any other group of the sexually active population…We are not
aware of any confirmed cases.”
Dr Patrick Sullivan,
US Centers for Disease Control
“The law still bars any HIV positive foreigner from visiting the
US, whether it is to play basketball, attend a business meeting or stand up
in a family wedding.”
Bonnie Miller Rubin, in the Chicago Tribune
“Without a word of protest from the national Aids organisations,
the Bush administration, behind closed doors, has been sabotaging the ability
of the world’s poorest countries to produce or buy cheap, generic Aids
meds.”
Doug Ireland,
POZ Magazine
“Millions will be on antiretroviral drugs until death. This is a
moral commitment between the wealthy and the non-wealthy that we have to maintain.”
Professor Richard Feacham, executive director of the Global Fund from
the Washington Post
