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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.
Introduction
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, represents hemophilia victims, 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 HIV and/or Hepatitis C ("HCV") viruses from exposure to virus-contaminated Factor VIII and IX. Lieff Cabraser is representing persons with hemophilia:
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 persons with hemophilia worldwide.
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.
It has been further alleged by plaintiffs in various cases that that the defendants fraudulently misrepresented to government officials and the public that Factor VIII and IX were safe to use and that they had undertaken serious, timely and effective efforts to reduce the risk to hemophilia victims of developing AIDS and HCV.
Plaintiffs charge that from July 1982, when the first evidence that persons 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 Hemophilia Victims Worldwide Exposed To HIV
Tens of thousands of persons 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 persons 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 West. Cutter introduced its safer medicine in late February 1984 as evidence mounted that the earlier version was infecting persons with hemophilia with HIV. Yet for over a year, The New York Times reported that the company continued to sell the old medicine, known as Blood Factor Concentrate, 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 other countries on behalf of persons with hemophilia residing outside the U.S. 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 sixty-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 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.
Copyright © 2006 Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein,
LLP