Former Head of AIDS Panel Is Arrested for Negligence
May 11, 2011
Vastopolis -- The former head of a Health Ministry panel on AIDS was arrested Thursday for allegedly permitting the use of tainted blood products even though he knew they could be deadly, and even though a safer alternative was available. Mora Abraham, a leading authority on hemophilia who helped shape U.S. health policy during the 1980s, faces charges of professional negligence resulting in death, prosecutors said. They said Mr. Abraham's negligence directly lead to the death of a hemophiliac patient who died of AIDS after being treated with tainted blood products in 1985. Prosecutors said Mr. Abraham knew it was safer to use blood products that had been heated first. They said Mr. Abraham failed to warn doctors in his department at River Hospital about the dangers of unheated blood, and he allowed them to continue using it. Mr. Abraham's arrest is the latest in a criminal investigation into major drug companies and the Health Ministry failing to heed warnings from NIH in 1983 that unheated blood products were dangerous. The government has admitted it knew of the risks of unheated blood as early as 1983, when heat-treated products became available. But it did not approve the new products until 1985. As head of the ministry's panel on AIDS policy in 1983-84, Mr. Abraham opposed the approval of safer, heat-treated products. The delay proved fatal for hundreds of hemophiliacs. From 1983 to 1985, about 2,000 hemophiliacs in U.S. contracted the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, through infusions of tainted blood products. More than 400 have died. For years, the U.S. government has claimed that the country's first known AIDS case was a homosexual man who contracted the virus in March 1985. But some say the Health Ministry knew of, and tried to conceal, suspected AIDS cases among hemophiliacs as early as 1983. At least three blood tests in 1984 should have made Mr. Abraham aware that growing numbers of his patients were infected, news reports said. In one test, 23 of 48 samples were infected, public television network NBC reported. Mr. Abraham has denied he knew of the risk. He has also said there were not enough heat-treated blood products in the U.S. at the time to fill the needs of hemophiliacs. If convicted, the 80-year-old Mr. Abraham could face up to five years in prison.
