A secretive Cabinet Office unit blocked the release of sensitive files about the contaminated blood scandal that claimed the lives of thousands across Britain, openDemocracy can reveal today.
The information was requested under the Freedom of Information Act by a campaigner whose father died in 1993 after being infected with HIV by the National Health Service.
The ‘Clearing House’ unit encouraged the Treasury to avoid releasing historic documents about litigation taken by haemophiliacs infected by HIV in the early 1990s – including a private acknowledgement from then Conservative health secretary, Ken Clarke, that some health authorities had been negligent when treating haemophiliacs with contaminated blood.
