Clinton AIDS Trail

Thanks to Brian Redman of Conspiracy Nation for passing on this story.

Saturday 12 September 1998
RCMP tracks HIV-tainted prison blood
Criminal probe traces trail of plasma from Arkansas inmates

   Mark Kennedy
   The Ottawa Citizen

   The RCMP's criminal investigation into the tainted-blood affair will
   examine how HIV-contaminated plasma was collected from Arkansas prison
   inmates and shipped to Canada by a U.S. firm with links to President
   Bill Clinton.

   "The RCMP is looking at all aspects of the blood distribution system,"
   Cpl. Gilles Moreau said yesterday. "It's one of the many aspects."

   Meanwhile, tainted-blood victims angrily said the prison
   blood-collection scheme was a scandal on its own that proved the
   federal government neglected its regulatory duties to keep the blood
   supply pure.

   They said the story lends credence to their continuing calls for the
   federal and provincial governments to compensate all tainted-blood
   victims, no matter when they were infected. Durhane Wong-Rieger, past
   president of the Canadian Hemophilia Society, said federal regulators
   were supposed to keep an eye on imported blood products and ensure
   they were not high risk. "They are responsible for this," she said of
   the federal government. "They are liable."

   The tainted plasma -- used to create special blood products for
   hemophiliacs -- is believed to have been infected with HIV, the virus
   that causes AIDS. As well, it's likely the prisoners' blood was
   contaminated with hepatitis C.

   Mr. Clinton was governor of Arkansas when the Canadian blood supply
   was contaminated in the mid-'80s.

   He was generally familiar with the operations of now-defunct Health
   Management Associates, the Arkansas firm that was given a contract by
   Mr. Clinton's state administration to provide medical care to
   prisoners.

   In the process, HMA was also permitted by the state to collect
   prisoners' blood and sell it elsewhere.

   Mr. Clinton was a friend of HMA president Leonard Dunn, who boasted of
   the friendship in 1986 to Arkansas police who conducted a probe of the
   firm following allegations it was providing poor medical care to
   inmates.

   In the early 1980s, U.S. companies that fractionate blood products had
   stopped buying prison blood because it was widely understood that
   since many prisoners practised unsafe sex or were intravenous drug
   users, they posed a high risk of carrying the AIDS virus.

   However, HMA found a willing buyer in Continental Pharma, a Montreal
   blood broker, which in turn sold the plasma to Toronto-based blood
   fractionator Connaught Laboratories. Connaught apparently didn't
   realize the plasma had come from prisoners.

   Details of HMA's links to Mr. Clinton were reported Thursday after the
   Citizen obtained copies of internal reports from the Arkansas State
   Police dating back to the mid-'80s.

   Cpl. Moreau, spokesman for the special task force of Mounties
   investigating the blood scandal, cautiously responded to queries
   yesterday about the investigators' work.

   He said that, as a matter of policy, the RCMP cannot reveal specifics
   about what is being investigated because that might jeopardize the
   investigation.

   However, Cpl. Moreau did note that Mr. Justice Horace Krever
   chronicled -- without mentioning Mr. Clinton -- what he knew about the
   prison-blood collection.

   The Mounties began their criminal investigation last February and
   established a toll-free number (1-888-530-1111) that Canadians can
   call with tips. So far, the RCMP investigators have interviewed more
   than 500 people and have travelled to the United States, Germany and
   the Netherlands.

   Here at home, they have interviewed people in every province. Some are
   victims and others are so-called "witnesses" who were involved in the
   blood system -- either in the Red Cross or in governments --when it
   went awry.

   "I can assure you that we are doing everything we can -- and that is
   in our power -- to get to the bottom of the blood distribution system
   and to look at it from the criminal aspect," said Moreau.

   The contaminated plasma collected by HMA in the early '80s came from
   Cummins prison in Grady, Arkansas. As well, HMA bought prisoners'
   plasma from four Louisiana prisons and sent it to the Montreal blood
   broker, which sold it to Connaught Laboratories. Connaught
   fractionated it into blood products for use by hemophiliacs.