The two-year-old was given the blood of American prisoners, drug addicts and prostitutes
“Our 7 year old son was used in secret studies because it was considered “cheaper to test” than chimpanzees”, the parents of Colin Smith, who died after being infected with HIV, relive their pain, before denouncing the facts that destroyed a family. Before a report on the scandal was published, Jan and Colin Smith spoke of their grief after their son, also named Colin, died in January 1990 after being infected with theAIDS and Hepatitis C with contaminated blood at the age of two.
Brian Langstaff’s report came out todayafter four years of gathering evidence in the tainted blood investigation between 2019 and 2023. Campaigners, including Mr and Mrs Smith, have worked tirelessly for decades to get justice for the victims of the scandal and this is what they hope will happen after the report is released next week. Mr Smith wants those responsible for the death of his son and other victims to face criminal charges such as manslaughterso that justice is served “correctly and not hypothetically,” he said a Sky News. Colin Jr. was born with hemophilia, a rare condition that affects infants. the blood’s ability to clot, which is treated with a substance called Factor VIII.
Factor VIII that was administered to the boy it was produced using the blood of American prisoners, drug addicts, and prostitutes. Mr and Mrs Smith told Sky News who believe their son (who weighed just 30 pounds when he died) was being used by doctors in “secret trials,” leading to his fatal HIV infection. Colin was treated in the 1980s by the famous hemophilia specialist Arthur Bloomwho himself died in 1992. But documents released to the inquest show that Bloom’s research involved enormous risks which were never explained to Colin’s parents.
The first time he was hospitalized the boy had never been treated for his haemophilia. This made it useful to researchers because they could study how it responded to new treatments. Mr Smith said his son was “unlucky enough to be born at the right time” and be a newly diagnosed and untreated hemophiliac. Always interviewed at Sky News, Colin Smith Sr. said his son was exactly what the doctors wanted because, “as the documentation states, they are cheaper than chimpanzees.” The father said that while a chimpanzee can only be treated once, the children can be cared for for a lifetime.
The investigation also concerned a letter Bloom had written to a colleague after seeing Colin in hospital, in which the doctor said he had just given the boy Factor VIII and also recognized the risk that he could contract hepatitis. “This is simply something that hemophiliacs must accept,” the letter reads. Bloom also wrote to his colleagues on June 24, 1983 stating that the Factor VIII carried a risk of AIDS and that a possible related case had been reported.
Colin Jr.’s parents were completely sure that the doctors were treating their son correctly, and they would never have thought about this. Mr and Mrs Smith also showed a Sky News a suitcase containing Colin’s mementos, including the blanket he was wrapped in when he died, which “still smells like him”. Also in the case were her favorite toys and his artwork.
