Postcards From The Hedge

  Between 1970 and the early 1990s, an estimated 30,000 people in the UK were given blood or blood products infected with HIV or hepatitis C. Some 3,000 died as a direct consequence. An inquiry commenced in 2018 has finally produced its report, and it is damning. Blood was not routinely tested for HIV until 1986, hepatitis C following 5 years later.  A significant source of the contamination was imported blood, particularly from America which paid donors, incentivising donation from drug users, for example.  Brian Langstaff's report lays much of the blame for the problem with Government, but medical staff and the NHS as a whole come in for criticism. All of which will be music to a conspiracist's ears. A nice juicy medical scandal, involving government, undermining trust in the medical profession... those who call for a similar inquiry into harms from vaccination - a call I would not necessarily oppose - will see many parallels,  and vindication of their suspicions that 'th