Cara McGoogan: The Poison Line
at Guille-Allès Library
Saturday 27 April from 14:00 to 15:00
Book
£7
Factor VIII was billed as a revolutionary treatment for people with haemophilia. But as the treatment was rolled out in the 1970s and 80s, haemophiliacs began to contract hepatitis and HIV in terrifying numbers.
Medical bodies and pharmaceutical companies tried to discredit whistleblowers, but it became clear infected blood was killing the very people it promised to protect. The Poison Line is the full and shocking account of one of the biggest medical disasters in history – and the lengths that big pharma, the NHS and governments worldwide took to cover it up. ‘A devastating piece of reportage. Books are routinely described as extraordinary, but this one really is’: John Preston, author of Fall.
In conversation with Ben Hinshaw.