Persons with hemophilia in the United States, Latin America, Europe,
Asia, the Middle East and Africa were infected with contaminated
blood products. Lieff Cabraser is representing clients from around
the world in lawsuits filed in U.S. courts against American blood
companies that sold in the U.S. and exported contaminated blood
worldwide.
COURT
DOCUMENTS
To read a copy of the Court's October 14, 2004 Case Management Order
in the Blood Factor litigation, click
here (Adobe Acrobat format).
We are investigating the blood factor products and conduct of
the American blood companies around the world. We are currently representing
clients from the following nations:
Notice: Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP continues to prosecute blood factor litigation. However, we are not representing or accepting new clients with injuries due to contaminated blood factor.
Lieff
Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, represents persons with
hemophilia worldwide, or their survivors and estates, who received
blood products manufactured by American companies in the early
to mid-1980's. The blood products were known as factor concentrate,
Factor VIII ("antihemophilic factor" or "AHF")
and Factor IX, and were manufactured and sold in the U.S., and
exported worldwide. The blood products were known as anti-hemophilic
factor or "Factor VIII" and "Factor IX."
The
plaintiffs allegedly became infected with the HIV
and/or Hepatitis C ("HCV") viruses from
exposure to virus-contaminated Factor VIII and IX.
Lieff Cabraser is representing persons with hemophilia:
from
outside the United States who were infected with HIV
and/or HCV, and
from
within the United States who were infected with HCV,
but not also co-infected with HIV.
Plaintiffs'
Allegations
After
1978, there were four major companies in the United States engaged
in the manufacture, production and sale of Factor VIII and IX:
Armour Pharmaceutical Company, Bayer Corporation and its Cutter
Biological division, Baxter Healthcare Corporation and its Hyland
Pharmaceutical division and Alpha Therapeutic Corporation, which
have been or are defendants in certain lawsuits.
The
plaintiffs allege that the companies manufactured and
sold blood factor products as beneficial "medicines"
that were, in fact, contaminated with HIV and/or HCV and
resulted in the mass infection and/or deaths of thousands
of people with hemophilia worldwide.
U.S.
Persons with hemophilia and HCV: Click
here for information specific to your claims.
It
is believed that three of these companies, Alpha, Baxter and
Cutter, recruited and paid donors from high risk populations,
including prisoners, intravenous drug users, and blood centers
with predominantly homosexual donors, to obtain blood plasma
used for the production of Factor VIII and IX. Plaintiffs allege
that these companies failed to exclude donors, as mandated by
federal law, with a history of viral hepatitis. Such testing
could have substantially reduced the likelihood of plasma containing
HIV and/or HCV entering plasma pools.
Plaintiffs
futher allege that the defendants fraudulently misrepresented
to government officials and the public that Factor VIII and
IX were safe to use and that the companies had undertaken serious,
timely and effective efforts to reduce the risk to persons with
hemophilia of developing AIDS and HCV.
Plaintiffs
charge that from July 1982, when the first evidence that people
with hemophilia had died from AIDS surfaced, through 1985, the
defendants acted in concert to avoid recalling Factor VIII and
IX; to avoid warning patients of the risks of HIV and HCV infection
posed by their products; to continue to market the products
as safe; to avoid implementing testing of Factor VIII and IX
for the presence of hepatitis, which would have served as a
surrogate for testing for HIV and HCV; to avoid developing and
implementing simple methods of viral inactivation that would
have eliminated all or most of the infections; and to issue
public statements minimizing the risk of contracting AIDS and
HCV from their blood factor products and overpromoting the benefits
of those products.
A
Global Tragedy: Tens of Thousands of People With Hemophilia
Worldwide Exposed To HIV
Tens
of thousands of people with hemophilia worldwide were infected
with HIV and/or HCV from the late-1970s through the 1980s after
receiving Factor VIII and IX infusions from blood plasma that
was originally gathered, processed and manufactured in the
United States by Armour, Cutter, Baxter and Alpha or their subsidiaries.
Many of these persons have since died. Others were children
or teenagers when they received the products and have been infected
with AIDS and/or Hepatitis B and/or C for most of their lives.
On
May 22, 2003, The New York Times reported that Cutter
Biological sold millions of dollars of blood-clotting medicine
for people with hemophilia -- medicine that carried a high risk
of transmitting AIDS -- to Asia and Latin America in the mid-1980's
while selling a new, safer product in the United States and
Europe. Cutter introduced its safer medicine in late February
1984 as evidence mounted that its prior product was infecting
victims of hemophilia with HIV. Yet for over a year, The
New York Times reported that the company continued to sell
the old product overseas.
Lieff
Cabraser is working with co-counsel Charles Kozak and lawyers
from Argentina, Germany,
Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy,
Taiwan, the United
Kingdom and many other countries in Africa, Asia, Europe,
Latin America and the Middle East to bring claims in U.S. courts
against the responsible American companies that, from the late-1970s
through the 1980s, produced, sold, distributed and/or failed
to recall blood products that were contaminated with HIV and/or
HCV.
About
Lieff Cabraser
Lieff
Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP is a fifty-plus
attorney law firm with offices in San Francisco, New York and Nashville. Since 1972, Lieff Cabraser
has successfully represented residents of the United States
and persons living abroad in a wide range of cases, including
personal injury lawsuits.
Lieff
Cabraser enjoys a national reputation for professional integrity
and the successful prosecution of our clients' claims. In
addition to our fifty-plus attorneys, we are staffed
with top-notch paralegals, registered nurses, scientific analysts,
investigators and litigation support specialists. Considerable
personnel resources, along with our ability to advance the
costs in our clients' cases, enable Lieff Cabraser to litigate
against the largest and most powerful corporations in the
world. To learn more about our firm, click
here.
