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America's Hepatitis C Outbreak
America's Hepatitis C Contaminated Blood Disaster
The US and the UK both relied heavily on Prisons and the Military for their blood supplies post war. On the right the US Dr Alter notes that their blood supply was 7% Hepatitis C positive until 1983. Again like all developed nations the graph shows a dramatic decline in infections with the advent of blood screening. Unlike in the UK where our Chief Medical Officer decided to take the actual 1% UK Hepatitis C prevalence and pretend it might be anything from 0.1 to 1%. The US Surgeon General was completely honest about the disaster being industrial in scale.
David Satcher, M.D., Ph.D. Surgeon General of the United States Statement on Hepatitis C
“There is one group that can be identified: the roughly one million people who have received blood from a donor who subsequently tested positive for hepatitis C. In 1996, this Subcommittee formally recommended that steps be taken to ensure that these individuals be notified. However, we do not feel that lookback would be an effective means of reaching those, another million, who received blood from a donor who was never tested directly for hepatitis C.”
The US health service has proceeded to recommend all born before 1965 get tested for hepatitis C. Once again the 80% drop in Hepatitis C infections is witnesses with the advent of transfusion screening.
