Lord Clarke will give evidence under oath to the contaminated blood scandal inquiry later – the first senior health minister from the time to testify. Around 3,000 people died after being given blood products containing HIV and hepatitis C in the 1970s and 1980s.
As late as November 1983 the government said it was not conclusively proven that HIV could be transmitted through blood products. By then officials were already aware of deaths linked to the treatment.
Lord Clarke was a Conservative health minister in the early 1980s when up to 30,000 people with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders were given contaminated blood products.
The evidence under oath of someone who served as health minister at the time marks a significant moment for survivors and their relatives, who campaigned for years to bring about the inquiry, saying the risks of the blood products were never explained and the scandal was covered up.
Victims of the scandal were given a clotting agent called Factor VIII which had been imported from the US, where it was made from plasma donated by prisoners and other groups at risk from blood-borne viruses.
