!nooticers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68831061

The true scale of the number of medical trials using infected blood products on children in the 1970s and 80s has been revealed by documents seen by BBC News.

They reveal a secret world of unsafe clinical testing involving children in the UK, as doctors placed research goals ahead of patients' needs.

They continued for more than 15 years, involved hundreds of people, and infected most with hepatitis C and HIV.

One surviving patient told the BBC he was treated like a "guinea pig".

The trials involved children with blood clotting disorders, when families had often not consented to them taking part. The majority of the children who enrolled are now dead.

Documents also show that doctors in haemophilia centres across the country used blood products, even though they were widely known as likely to be contaminated.

A shortage of blood products in the UK in the 1970s and 80s meant they were imported from the US. High-risk donors such as prisoners and drug addicts provided the plasma for the treatments that were infected with potentially fatal viruses including hepatitis C - which attacks the liver resulting in cirrhosis and cancer - and HIV.

One blood product, known as Factor VIII, was seen to be highly effective for stopping bleeding but also widely known to be contaminated with viruses.

A public inquiry is under way into the scandal. The final report is due in May.

'Guinea pig'

Luke O'Shea-Phillips, 42, has mild haemophilia - a blood clotting disorder that means he bruises and bleeds more easily than most.

He caught the potentially lethal viral infection hepatitis C while being treated at the Middlesex Hospital, in central London, which was administered because of a small cut to his mouth, aged three, in 1985.

Documents seen by the BBC suggest he was deliberately given the blood product - which his doctor knew might have been infected - so he could be enrolled in a clinical trial.

The doctor wanted to find out how likely patients were to catch diseases from a new version of heat-treated Factor VIII. Though he had never been treated for his condition before, Luke was given heat-treated Factor VIII to stop his mouth bleeding.

A letter from Luke's doctor, Samuel Machin, to another expert in haemophilia, was submitted in evidence to the public inquiry into the infected blood scandal.

Writing to Peter Kernoff, at London's Royal Free Hospital, Dr Machin detailed the treatment of Luke and another boy, asking: "I hope they will be suitable for your heat-treated trial."

Months earlier, Dr Kernoff had called on fellow doctors in the field to identify patients suitable for clinical trials. Specifically, he said, they had to be "previously untreated patients", known as "PUPs" in the medical community.

They were also nicknamed "virgin haemophiliacs" - a term written on Luke's medical record by Dr Machin.

"I was a guinea pig in clinical trials that could have killed me," Luke told the BBC. "There is no other way to explain it - my treatment was changed so I could be enrolled in clinical trials. This change in medication gave me a fatal disease - hepatitis C - yet my mother was never even told."

"To the scientific world, it was an incredible benefit being a virgin haemophiliac," he added. "To be a clean petri dish to understand science through, I was without question a part of that."

What is the infected blood scandal?

Parents and pupils kept in the dark at blood scandal school

Infected blood scandal: Boy, 7, died from Aids after doctor ignored rules

Infected Blood Inquiry The letter from Dr Machin reveals the trial Luke was part ofInfected Blood Inquiry

The letter from Dr Machin reveals the trial Luke was part of

In the following years, as the medical trial reached its conclusions, Luke had many blood tests. Doctors said they were monitoring him and, at the time, his mother, Shelagh O'Shea, was grateful.

In their findings, published in 1987, Dr Kernoff and Dr Machin concluded heat treatment had "little or no effect" in reducing the risk of of hepatitis C.

Both Dr Kernoff and Dr Machin are now dead.

Before he died, Dr Machin gave evidence to the public inquiry, when he confirmed that Luke had been recruited to Dr Kernoff's study.

He denied this had been done without Luke's mother's knowledge. "This would have been discussed with his mother, although I acknowledge that standards of consent in the 1980's was quite different to what it is now," Dr Machin said.

However, Mrs O'Shea told the inquiry she as "absolutely not" told about the trial. "With an innocent child of three and a half I would not have considered such an action. I would never ever have allowed my child to be part of a trial - never," she added.

Documents reveal doctors knew Luke had contracted hepatitis C as early as 1993, but he was not told until 1997. One medical record states a positive test result and says: "Have not discussed with patient or family."

Luke is now clear of the infection after successful treatment.

'Laboratory rats'

However, evidence of the clinical trials have raised wider concerns.

"A patient should always be given the best possible treatment and they should always have given informed consent - if those two factors haven't been achieved then a trial would be seen as very problematic," says Professor Emma Cave, Professor of Healthcare Law at Durham University.

Professor Edward Tuddenham, who was a haemophilia doctor at the Royal Free Hospital in the 1980's, confirmed these fears. When asked if he thought ethical standards had been met during clinical trials in the 1980s, he simply answered: "No."

The BBC's investigation has revealed that Dr Machin and Dr Kernoff were among a community of doctors with similar research ambitions.

A specialist school near Alton, in Hampshire, was attended by a large cohort of haemophiliac boys. The school for disabled children had an NHS haemophilia unit on site, so boys who had bleeds could be treated quickly and then return to lessons.

Their doctor, Dr Anthony Aronstam - who has also since died - used his "unique" cohort of boys for extensive clinical trials. One series of experiments considered whether using three to four times more Factor VIII than normally required by a child would help to reduce the number of bleeds he had.

This was preventative treatment, know as prophylaxis, and involved repeated injections with infected Factor VIII products and follow-up blood tests. The high concentrations of infected blood products were administered to the boys without their - or their parents' - consent.

Of the122 pupils attending Treloar's College between 1974-1987, 75 have so far died of HIV and hepatitis C infections.

"Despite knowing the product was riddled with hepatitis, they started a trial that required us to have way more of it than we needed," says Gary Webster, who was unknowingly enrolled.

Ade Goodyear, a pupil at Treloar's from 1980 to 1989, added: "We were treated like lab rats. There was a plethora of studies that we were all enrolled on for the decade we were at the school."

The school where dozens died in NHS blood scandal

Lee Stay Treloar's College in the late 1980sLee Stay

Lord Mayor Treloar College in Holybourne, Hampshire in the late 1980s

Controversially, another trial involved placebo treatments. This meant that some boys, who thought they had been given Factor VIII to prevent bleeds, had in fact been given a saline solution.

"When you think you've been given a treatment, this changes your behaviour," Gary said. "You run more, you play more rough in football. For a haemophiliac, you feel a bit invincible for a short window after a jab. But with a placebo you are just risking your life by changing your behaviour."

He told the BBC he was punished at school if he missed injections. "It would have meant their trials would have been flawed and so we, us kids, were made to toe the line."

Dr Kernoff's pursuit of clinical advancement through research was rigorous, as was his hunt for suitable subjects for trials - PUPs and virgin haemophiliacs - which let to those involved getting young and younger. A four-month-old baby was involved in a trial.

Among his studies was one that compared the infectiousness of another blood plasma product - Cryoprecipitate (Cryo) - to Factor VIII concentrates.

Cryo was used for treating mild blood clotting conditions. It contained the Factor VIII protein, but at lower concentrations and from fewer donors and was therefore thought to be less risky.

Dr Kernoff's search for suitable subjects led him to Mark Stewart, his brother, and his father, who all had very mild cases of von Willebrand's disease - another type of blood clotting disorder. Their usual treatment was cryo.

Mark Stewart Mark and Angus StewartMark Stewart

Mark Stewart (left) believes he will die as a result of the trial he unknowingly took part in, like his brother Angus (right)

As part of his test, Dr Kernoff gave them all Factor VIII concentrates instead.

"Until we were given concentrates it would be once a month you'd have a little nose bleed, and you'd go up and have cryo and that was that." All three contracted hepatitis C.

Mark's brother and father have both died of liver cancer after the infection attacked the organ. Neither were told they had contracted the disease until it was too late for treatment.

"Angry is an understatement," Mark said. "Your dad is in the front carriage, your brother is in the second carriage and you are in the third carriage - so you know what is coming. It won't veer off that track. This is how hep C works. It will get you."

A statement from Treloar's said: "We await the publication of the infected blood inquiry, which we hope will provide our former pupils with the answers they have been waiting for."

The inquiry into the wider infected blood scandal will conclude on 20 May.

Wonder how many people I’m gonna piss off with this post… 😂 pic.twitter.com/61ofX4Yshe

— Tiffany Gomas (@Tiffany_Gomas) April 17, 2024

Feet slightly hidden

yes i posted this for our resident !coomers

Mother of 8 children

https://www.chub.ai/characters/TouchFluffyTails/marsey-the-catgirl-2f47a299a538

To interact with Marsey you will need to follow the sillytavern setup instructions, you can either use a local model or hook her up to GPT api or something. I don't want to share my IP address but maybe some dramanaut might be able to open a session up for people using this.

https://sillytavernai.com/

https://old.reddit.com/r/SillyTavernAI/

!coomers !codecels

Example chats.

edit: I am heavily in negative coins now, money pls

'nam show by oldboy guy

FIRST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

I'm 1/16 negro

why do these fricking Ivy League kids insist that they're black?

I'm gonna kill myself

do it r-slur

watches woman pooping

gets what he deserves

I will admit I'm a retired wrestlingcel and going in I knew the story of the Von Erichs. Some aspects don't happen chronologically, nor accurately. Heck they didn't even put Chris (the youngest brother) in it at all because it would have made the movie like 4 hours long.

Fact is tho, Zac Efron should get a look for best actor Oscar, and the film itself should as well. Incredibly well acted and cast, the pacing is great and there isn't any filler. By the last scene of the movie I was literally balling my eyes out and I'm a 40yo guy. Highly recommend this to all dramatards.

I (28m) don't like to tease or make jabs at people. It's always felt mean or rude to me. But apparently, that seems to be the norm in my social circles. Anytime I've tried to, people find it off putting or that I'm being kind of a peepee. I don't have much success with forming new acquaintances or friendships because I don't like to do any of those things. Does anyone else feel the same or am I alone in this?

Personality:I was a shy and meek girl. Let's be honest, no one wants to be around socially awkward people IRL. It may be cute on Timothee Chalamet to some people, but if you are a socially awkward shy woman, people are unfortunately not here for that. That being said I took advantage of public speaking in school projects, I watched youtube videos on public speaking, which surprisingly helped. I also watched videos of people that are confident and I admired, and started talking like them. I smiled more and appeared confident. So fake it basically

Honestly she put more effort than any inkwell I know

!dotards

crownfall

I've been reading some Effective Altruist writings and learned that even if AI had moral goals it could be very dangerous .

Like imagine an AI whos goal was to maximize the number of mosquito nets given to Africa, sounds great right?

NO! Because the AI would be willing to do anything in order to achieve it's goals it might do something like commit one of the largest acts of fraud in history to get the money for more mosquito nets!

Hmm... what does this remind me of?

!wolfpack

was at work today and i was talking to my boss that I have a crush on, he notices im sad and asks if im alright, I say no and he asks if I want a hug, and at this point it's not like i had the emotion fortitude to say no i was so fricking sad. he goes in and hugs me, im nervous so i do the hover hand thing unintentionally, then he says "that was a weak butt hug" and I said "sorry" and turned away and started crying. At this point he told me that i didn't have to spend my time there and that i could go home if i wanted, i nodded and he cleaned up my stuff and i slipped away while he was talking to someone else.

im sharing bc im still really sad and now im also really embarrassed. source of sadness: perceived my body in the reflection of a window

Back a few years ago when praying to God, I told him directly that if anyone ends up in heck undeservingly which is a concept that I cannot justify with a just and loving God then I would go there myself, since then I have been exploring the truth about the religion and quite frankly, knowing that I am darned does give me to freedom to actually explore the religion and discover the truth about it free of Church dogma.

This is what Catholics believe, Jesus sacrificed himself for our sins and went down to heck, I don't believe or agree with the concept of Heck and if he did, then it's my duty as a Christian to follow Jesus and do the same.

The Crucifixarion reflects the scapegoat ritual in Leviticus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell#:~:text=The%20term%20'Harrowing%20of%20Hell,of%20the%20Old%20Testament%20period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoat#:~:text=In%20the%20Bible%2C%20a%20scapegoat,the%20sins%20of%20the%20community.

In the Bible, a scapegoat is one of a pair of kid goats that is released into the wilderness, taking with it all sins and impurities, while the other is sacrificed. The concept first appears in the Book of Leviticus, in which a goat is designated to be cast into the desert to carry away the sins of the community.

Jesus was the scapegoat.

First you should accept that Lucifer and Satan are two different beings, Satan is presented as having goat horns as symbolism because of the scapegoat ritual.

Isaiah 14:12-17

Revelation 22:16

2 Peter 1:19 the word Lucifer is used to refer to Jesus in the Latin Vulgate.

You shouldn't be afraid of heck. The real heck is living your life with the fear of heck.