Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal
Encyclopedia
Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal is a feature length documentary by Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 filmmaker and investigative journalist Kelly Duda
Kelly Duda
Kelly Duda is an American filmmaker and activist from Arkansas. Duda spent seven years making Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal.Variety magazine described Duda as "a pit bull with a bureaucratic bone" who "follows subjects fearlessly and ventures into hostile environs comes away, most of...

. Through interviews and presentation of documents and footage, Duda alleges that for more than two decades, the Arkansas prison system profited from selling blood plasma from inmates infected with viral hepatitis
Hepatitis
Hepatitis is a medical condition defined by the inflammation of the liver and characterized by the presence of inflammatory cells in the tissue of the organ. The name is from the Greek hepar , the root being hepat- , meaning liver, and suffix -itis, meaning "inflammation"...

 and AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

. The documentary contends that thousands of victims who received transfusions of a blood product derived from these plasma products, "Factor 8", died as a result.

Factor 8 uses in-depth interviews and key documents as well as never-before-seen footage, to allege wrongdoing at the Arkansas state government, and at the United States federal level.

Through in-depth interviews with a number of players, including victims in Canada who contracted the diseases, US state prison officials, former employees, high-ranking Arkansas politicians and inmate donors, Factor 8 examines a prison blood-harvesting scheme run by prisoners to earn them an income; the blood was then sold by blood companies for millions of dollars. The harvested plasma was then shipped around the world, where it has been reported to have infected thousands of haemophilia
Haemophilia
Haemophilia is a group of hereditary genetic disorders that impair the body's ability to control blood clotting or coagulation, which is used to stop bleeding when a blood vessel is broken. Haemophilia A is the most common form of the disorder, present in about 1 in 5,000–10,000 male births...

 patients. Haemophilia is a genetic condition which prevents clotting.

In the United States, lawyers have won settlements for 8,000 US haemophilia sufferers after they were given infected blood. In 2002 the UK Government promised an inquiry if it was proven infected blood came from a US prison, although to date no inquiry has taken place. The UK Public Health Minister, Caroline Flint, has said: "We are aware that during the 1970s and 80s blood products were sourced from US prisoners" and the UK Haemophilia Society has called for a Public Inquiry. The UK Government maintains that the Government of the day had acted in good faith and without the blood products many patients would have died. In a letter to Lord Jenkin of Roding the Chief Executive of the National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...

 (NHS) informed Lord Jenkin that most files on contaminated NHS blood products which infected people with HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

 and hepatitis C had unfortunately been destroyed "in error". Fortunately, copies that were taken by legal entities in the UK at the time of previous litigation may mean the documentation can be retrieved and consequently assessed.

In Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, the federal government approved in July, 2006 a $1 billion compensation package for the so-called "forgotten victims" of tainted blood. Prior to this, the Canadian Red Cross
Canadian Red Cross
The Canadian Red Cross Society is a Canadian humanitarian charitable organization and one of 186 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies....

 pled guilty to criminal charges related to distributing tainted blood products and infecting Canadians with HIV and hepatitis C. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

 blood task force has an ongoing investigation into the Arkansas sells.

In Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 tainted blood victims won two class-action lawsuits in 2006 against two Japanese pharmaceutical companies and the Japanese federal government. Japan also used blood harvested from the Arkansas Department of Correction. On March 23, 2007, the Tokyo District Court became the third court to rule in favor of more Hep-C suffering tainted blood victims, awarding the plaintiffs 259 million yen. A fourth lawsuit victory for victims led to a compensation package by the federal government for hundreds of victims and a formal apology from Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in December, 2007.

Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal was screened at Slamdance
Slamdance
Slamdance may refer to:* Mosh, a form of dance associated with punk rock and other musical genres* Slamdance Film Festival, an annual event featuring the work of independent filmmakers...

 2005 and at the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...

’s Los Angeles Film Festival in November 2005. It won a special mention award at AFI and received a commendable review from critic John Anderson in the industry newspaper Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

. A special screening of the film was held in Soho, London on May 5, 2006. On May 9, 2006, AIDS victims demonstrated against former US president Bill Clinton's visit to Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 where he gave a speech about global politics. The British premiere of Factor 8 was held on September 29, 2006, as part of the 14th Raindance Film Festival
Raindance Film Festival
Raindance is an independent film festival and film school that operates from various cities including: London, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Budapest, Berlin and Brussels...

 in Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly...

, London.

In April 2007, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 began a highly publicized public inquiry into contaminated blood, garnering significant media coverage. In May, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 announced an impending inquiry of its own into tainted blood.

On July 11, 2007, Duda testified in at the Lord Archer Inquiry on Contaminated Blood in Westminster
Westminster
Westminster is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster, England. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and southwest of Charing Cross...

, United Kingdom. The inquiry's aim is to uncover the British government's part in a scandal that led to thousands of infections and deaths. Duda gave evidence as to the United State's (and Arkansas's) role in the tragedy in what Lord Robert Winston has dubbed as "the worst treatment disaster in the history of the National Health Service".
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