Government in dock as HIV couple sue US drug firms in blood scandal

Lawyers for a couple infected with HIV through contaminated blood products are hoping to reopen the issue of government responsibility for the scandal in the British courts.
Writs against the American pharmaceutical companies that supplied the blood products have been issued in the names of Haydn Lewis from Cardiff, a haemophiliac given contaminated blood who was diagnosed with HIV in 1985 and with hepatitis C in the early 1990s, and his wife Gaynor Lewis, whom he unwittingly infected with HIV.
The couple, with six other claimants, have been trying to pursue their case against the American companies for five years in the US courts. Recently, however, a US judge ruled that the cases should be heard in Britain. One of the reasons cited was that it would be easier for bodies such as the Department of Health to be joined in the action as defendants along with the drug companies.read more