State Crime Example: the infected blood scandal | A Level Sociology | Crime & Deviance

Welcome to this T2 sociology topic video on crime and deviance. In this video, we're going to look at a state crime, the infected blood scandal in the United Kingdom. The infected blood scandal is one of the gravest public health disasters in the UK's history, occurring between the 1970s and 1990s. Thousands of patients, including

children, were given contaminated blood products through the National Health Service, leading to infections with life-threatening diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C. This incident has been widely recognized as a state crime as it involved systematic failures by government institutions, regulatory bodies, and policymakers whose actions or lack of action resulted in harm to

citizens. During the 1970s, the NHS faced a shortage of blood products needed for treating conditions like hemophilia, a disorder that impairs blood clotting. To address this, the UK began importing blood plasma from commercial suppliers, primarily in the United States. However, much of this blood came from high-risk donors such as prison inmates, drug users, and others who were

paid for their donations. The blood was not adequately screened for infectious diseases and this lack of quality control led to contaminated blood products being introduced into the NHS supply chain. The consequences were catastrophic. Over 4,000 hemophiliacs and other patients were infected with hepatitis C and more than 1,200 were infected with HIV. Many of these

individuals have since died as a result of these infections. Despite growing evidence of the risks, government agencies failed to act decisively to protect the public, continuing to use contaminated products and failing to inform patients about the risks that they faced. In 1983, when concerns about the blood supply were raised in relation to