Bad Blood
Pooja Patel
08/19/2013
Documentary of Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale
Mrs. Jones
MA 125
Through the eyes of survivors and family members and the producer Merlyn Ness, "Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale" chronicles how a "miracle" treatment for hemophilia became an agent of death for 10,000 Americans.
Hemophilia is a rare genetic blood clotting disorder, most often passed from mother to son, resulting in severe crippling and often death. But in the 1960s, Judith Gram Pool dicoverd cryo precipitate from the residue at the bottom of a bag of plasma, this residue contains factor proteins that could help hemophilia patient. Cryo dominatedthe market for hemophila treatment until factor concentrates, a revolutionary new treatment derived from human blood, was approved by the FDA to treat hemophilia it was processed, bottled, and offered for sale by drug companies, to be injected by the patient’s themselves at home. The medicine transformed hemophilia from a fatal disease to a chronic condition and the patients were now able to lead nearly normal lives.
This miracle product was considered so beneficial that it was approved by the FDA despite known risks of viral contamination, including the near-certainty of infection with hepatitis and despite the fact that the process by which it was made, the pooling of blood from thousands of donors, was otherwise outlawed. Because of its manufacturing process, each dose of Factor concentrate was made by pooling 60,000 individual blood donations, opening these vulnerable patients to an enormous contamination risk. This risk could have been avoided by not offering money to the doners. Doners were also collected in prisons and poor aicken areas. When the FDA realized about the doners they had tried to stop the processes of collecting the plasma but they were in enormous pressure by the pharmaceuticas companies which stated that without donars they could not treat these patient. Government regulators, and even doctors considered
08/19/2013
Documentary of Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale
Mrs. Jones
MA 125
Through the eyes of survivors and family members and the producer Merlyn Ness, "Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale" chronicles how a "miracle" treatment for hemophilia became an agent of death for 10,000 Americans.
Hemophilia is a rare genetic blood clotting disorder, most often passed from mother to son, resulting in severe crippling and often death. But in the 1960s, Judith Gram Pool dicoverd cryo precipitate from the residue at the bottom of a bag of plasma, this residue contains factor proteins that could help hemophilia patient. Cryo dominatedthe market for hemophila treatment until factor concentrates, a revolutionary new treatment derived from human blood, was approved by the FDA to treat hemophilia it was processed, bottled, and offered for sale by drug companies, to be injected by the patient’s themselves at home. The medicine transformed hemophilia from a fatal disease to a chronic condition and the patients were now able to lead nearly normal lives.
This miracle product was considered so beneficial that it was approved by the FDA despite known risks of viral contamination, including the near-certainty of infection with hepatitis and despite the fact that the process by which it was made, the pooling of blood from thousands of donors, was otherwise outlawed. Because of its manufacturing process, each dose of Factor concentrate was made by pooling 60,000 individual blood donations, opening these vulnerable patients to an enormous contamination risk. This risk could have been avoided by not offering money to the doners. Doners were also collected in prisons and poor aicken areas. When the FDA realized about the doners they had tried to stop the processes of collecting the plasma but they were in enormous pressure by the pharmaceuticas companies which stated that without donars they could not treat these patient. Government regulators, and even doctors considered