Canadian authorities have charged a US pharmaceutical company with criminal negligence relating to one of its blood products, one of which may have infected an Irish boy with HIV.
Following a five-year investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has laid multiple charges of criminal negligence against Armour Pharmaceuticals and four doctors stemming from the 1980s tainted blood scandal.
More than 1,000 Canadian people were infected with HIV and some 17,000 contracted hepatitis C through tainted blood during that time, according to health groups.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Blood Task Force charged the Canadian Red Cross Society with six counts of common nuisance by endangering the public.
The recently published report of the Lindsay Tribunal concluded it was likely an Armour product infected a young Irish haemophiliac with HIV. He later died from an AIDS-related illness.
The report said the boy, given the pseudonym Simon, was given one infusion of Armour product A2 8 306 at the National Children's Hospital in February, 1986.
The tribunal was told that despite warning about the effectiveness of treatment measures used to sterilise HIV from the blood, Armour continued to supply its product.
The New Jersey-based Armour Pharmaceutical Company faces three counts of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and one count of common nuisance by endangering the public.
Two of the doctors charged worked for the federal government in different health divisions.
The Minister for Health, Mr Martin, has pledged to bring a plan to investigate international drug firms who supplied products linked to a number of the deaths of 79 people in the State to the Dáil before Christmas.
AFP