Penrose Testimony 26.6

So far as Glasgow and the west of Scotland was concerned, the evidence of Mrs Rosalind Prior, who was employed by the SNBTS as a Mobile Team Assistant in the region between 1969 and March 1974, was that in the early 1970s staff were never told to ask any donors if they had ever used intravenous drugs.[4] Dr Ruthven Mitchell, Director of the Glasgow and the West of Scotland BTS from 1978 to 1995, stated that:

Throughout the life of the UK transfusion services, it was always thought that donors were selected on the basis of 'tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief', great efforts are made to avoid any discrimination.[5]

Penrose Testimony 26.33 

Reaction against collection in prisons started early in the 1970s in the United States of America. Professor Richard Titmuss' book The Gift Relationship had a powerful impact.[46] When he published, in 1970, it was well-established in the USA that there was a relatively high prevalence of serum hepatitis among certain donor populations and, in particular, among the 'cloistered residents of Skid Row' and prisoners.[47] The risk of transmission of infection associated with these groups was said to be at least ten times as great as that arising from voluntary donors.

People who had injected Heroin where allowed to donate

Penrose Testimony 26.4 

A new comprehensive guide was prepared at that time, in response to the observations of the Medicines Inspectorate, for use in the Edinburgh and South East of Scotland BTS. The copy of the guide recovered by the Inquiry is only partly legible. In relation to drug use, however, the guide advised SNBTS staff to consult the doctor or sister on duty. As general guidance, it stated: At least 6 months should elapse after the use of parenteral drugs because of the risk of serum-hepatitis.

Penrose Chapter 18 Conclusions

By the spring of 1983 it was accepted that AIDS presented a transfusion risk. This resulted in a step change in the rigour of donor selection procedures. Until then it is unlikely that generally recognised interview procedures at donation collections in Scotland were fully effective to elicit information about social or medical histories of donors in general which was relevant to risks of transmission of viral hepatitis.