Blood scandal: Dudley man who got hepatitis C welcomes inquiry

These are the words of campaigner Greg Stokes who has fought for justice over the contaminated blood scandal of the 1970s and 1980s which left 2,400 people dead.

The 62-year-old, who suffers from a clotting factor deficiency, contracted hepatitis C from blood products he was given during treatment in the 1970s.

Today Mr Stokes welcomed the Prime Minister Theresa May’s announcement that there would be a wide-ranging inquiry into the treatment of thousands of haemophiliacs and other patients with blood products infected with hepatitis C and HIV.

“It’s been a long hard fight to get this inquiry. This wasn’t one event, like a fire, this was spread over a number of years and the safety of the haemophilia community was not considered.

“I hope that we find out why the decisions were made to disregard our safety. Documents relating to this were also destroyed so we need to know who made this decision and why,” said Mr Stokes, who lives in Milking Bank, Dudley.

Campaigners have been pressing for years for an inquiry into the importing of the clotting agent Factor VIII from the US.

Much of the plasma used to make the product came from donors like prison inmates who sold their blood which turned out to be infected. Around 4,800 patients are thought to have been infected with hepatitis C while 1,200 also contracted HIV, which can cause Aids.

The extent of infection with hepatitis C was not discovered until years later.

It is believed that Mr Stokes contracted the potentially life-threatening virus as early as 1975 but it was not diagnosed until 2001.

Since then he has had two courses of treatment with the latter believed to have proven successful.

But it has left him with severe liver damage and at a higher risk of developing cancer.

“I’d had it for years without knowing. I had two lots of treatment in 2002 and 2012 at the QE Hospital in Birmingham and the second lot is believed to have been successful. But I will be visiting the liver unit in Birmingham for the rest of my life because they have to keep monitoring me because there is a greater statistical probability of me developing liver cancer because I’ve had hepatitis C.

"At the moment it’s what they call sustained virologic response which means the virus is below detection levels. You can never say you’ve got rid of it completely,” said Mr Stokes, who last year published a book about his experience called Last Virion Standing.

He said patients deserved answers and in particular he wanted to know why the NHS continued to import blood products from the US when Lord Owen, who was health minister at the time, pledged that Britain would no longer import blood products in 1975.

“David Owen, now Lord Owen, called for self-sufficiency for Britain in making it’s own blood products because of it being a paid system in the US but this never happened. What happened to the money for this? “Instead 2,400 people died and many more have suffered. It’s still going on today with people’s health being affected.”