Edinburgh Infected Blood Inquiry: Medics waited two months to tell patients they'd been given HIV

Professor Christopher Ludlam, consultant haematologist and reference centre director at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary between 1980 and 2011 is this week giving evidence, and today confirmed that he took samples from patients without their knowledge or consent.

The inquiry is examining the situation in which patients were infected with HIV and hepatitis C via contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.

Prof Ludlam said he knew of the 16 positive cases in October 1984 but patients were not told they could request test results until a group meeting in December that year.

He said he “wanted to inform the patients in a controlled way” rather than them “learning by rumour”.

The inquiry heard he phoned a Dr McClelland in October 1984 to tell him 16 haemophiliac patients had developed antibodies to HTLV-III, the previous name for HIV.

Asked by Jenni Richards QC if patients had still not been told about the diagnoses by November, Prof Ludlam said: “That’s correct – we were quite taken aback, I was quite taken aback by the results received.

“It was out of the blue and we had to actually think about what the implications were.”

The evidence showed a group meeting took place at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on December 19 that year – two months after the results were initially discovered.

The professor was then asked why he thought a group meeting was a good idea.

He said the day after attending a “stressful meeting” in London, he “turned up at work the following morning to receive a phone call from a The Yorkshire Post reporter who said he had heard about the Edinburgh episode”.

Prof Ludlam added: “I begged him to delay, he was desperate to publish his story … and so I eventually persuaded him to wait about a week before publishing it.”

The reporter told the professor he would publish on December 20, leaving him a few days to decide what to do – with a letter sent to the patients inviting them to the group meeting.

Ms Richards said: “There’s nothing in that letter that would inform the recipient there is a problem with Scottish factor, or that patients have been tested, or that there are positive results to come back.”

He replied: “No, but I opened the letter saying there’s been much publicity so there was a lot around in the general news about Aids.

“I suppose I could have said that we had results for some patients but the implication was that if you are interested, please come and see me.”

A preliminary look at the results suggested at least one batch of PFC concentrate, used to treat haemophiliac patients, had caused infection, Prof Ludlam added.

He agreed with inquiry chairman Sir Brian Langstaff that he had “not quite (known) where to turn” after getting the positive test results.

The professor said the consequences of HIV infection were “to some extent unknown” at that time.

He added: “Was this actually a situation where 100% of those infected were going to get Aids or was it a case of only 1%?”

The inquiry continues on Thursday.