BMJ  2007;335:743 (13 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.39363.347338.DB

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Doctors and officials should not have been charged over infected blood, lawyers say

Quebec

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

After four doctors and a US drug company were acquitted in Canada last week of criminal charges relating to the distribution of infected blood products, the doctors' lawyers have said that the case should never have been brought. But patients' groups greeted the acquittal with dismay.

The products infected more than 1000 Canadians with HIV and up to 20 000 with hepatitis C. Events dating back more than 20 years have become known as the nation's worst preventable public health disaster.

On 1 October, after an 18 month trial, Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto acquitted Roger Perrault, former national medical director of the Canadian Red Cross Society, John Furesz and Donald Boucher, former federal health department officials, and Michael Rodell, a former executive of Armour Pharmaceutical. They had been accused of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and of common nuisance endangering the public, after patients were given infected blood . . . [Full text of this article]

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