Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 10:52:47 EST

The Blood Trail: Part One

Author: Dale Hurd

On May 19,1999, on the same night an office in Montreal was broken into and burglarized, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a clinic was fire bombed. How could seemingly separate incidents in Quebec and Arkansas be related? A message was delivered...the same message. Someone, somewhere is very concerned about an incredible scandal that most Americans know nothing about, but about which Canadians know only too well.

This is a story about tainted blood collected from Arkansas inmates and sold to make a profit. It's about hundreds of dead and dying Canadian hemophiliacs who used it, and a former governor who could be held legally responsible for it.

The blood trail starts at Cummins prison, near Grady, Arkansas. Cummins was one of several prisons in Arkansas in which blood products were collected from infected prisoners, sold on the spot market at a huge profit, and then shipped all around the world.

The federal courts once condemned the Arkansas prison system as "a dark and evil world completely alien to the free world." In 1978, its conditions were declared unconstitutional. Inmates used to be murdered inside Cummins prison: their bodies thrown into unmarked graves. Arkansas was one of the 1st prison systems to use slave labor. And it was the last prison system in the country to stop selling plasma donated by prisoners.

Michael Galster is a board certified prosthetist/orthotist. He's worked at Cummins prison from the 1970's until the present day. "I would try to look on their charts and see if they had had a blood test, because they'd have a Band-Aid at their elbow, and they'd tell me, "No, they hadn't had a blood test: they'd just sold their blood the day before." Galster says some of his patients, who were also in the blood program, had no business giving blood. "Some of them were just too ill to walk, if they could walk in the first place. They'd come in a wheelchair, they'd have distended abdomens, they'd be yellow, the whites of their eyes would be yellow-all the obvious signs of hepatitic infections."

What Galster eventually uncovered about the prison plasma program was turned into a book: Blood Trail. It's not a book for everyone because it contains adult language and adult situations. Galster chose to write his account as a novel under a pen name, Michael Sullivan, because he was afraid for his family's safety. He would later find out he had reason to be. But back in the 1980' s, Galster assumed prison officials must have known what they were doing. "I assumed that the people in the prison were buying and selling this blood had some technique of cleaning it up, running it through a filter, or whatever..."

John Schock was an inmate at Cummins in the 80's. He donated blood so that he could get a few dollars in paper scrip to spend at the prison canteen. But he paid dearly for it. It was through the blood program that he contracted the incurable hepatitis C that wrecked his first liver. "I've never seen them tear open a needle, a clean needle, and stick it in you." Schock said he saw plenty of sick inmates who were allowed to bleed, "[I saw ] sick people going in and bleeding...coughing, hacking, choking, carrying on all over the place, you know, [and] all over everybody. [Some had] pneumonia or the flu or [I would] know that they are a homosexual, and they're in here bleeding, just like I am.

"Sometimes they would let you go two or three weeks and they'd be sticking you every time, testing you. Sometimes it'd be two or three months before they'd stick you and test you again" In other words, Schock confirmed that he and other inmates gave blood without being tested.

The plasma was spun out of the blood, which was then put back into the inmates. The bleeding program was a gold mine. Inmates only got about five dollars per liter, but with sometimes thousands of liters being collected each month with a market value of 50 dollars or more per liter, HMA should have netted more than at least a million dollars per year. There are suspicions it made several million a year.

The plasma was shipped out stamped ADC plasma. What may not have been clear to the buyers is that "ADC" stood for Arkansas Department of Corrections. The plasma was sold all around the world, but in the 1980's, much of it ended up in Canada, where a Toronto company used it to make a blood clotting product called Factor 8, which was then distributed by the Canadian Red Cross and, finally, put into the blood streams of unsuspecting Canadians like James Drepner.

"When I was in my early twenties, and feeling fine, I weighed about 180, 185 pounds, and now I'm about 105 pounds." Krepner, a Toronto attorney, is dying from Aids and hepatitis C from Arkansas prison plasma. "I mean, initially, when I was infected, I thought, well, it's bad luck, you know, it's just bad luck. You got some factor that was contaminated. There was nothing they could have done about it and it was bad luck. But as I investigated I found that no, it's not just bad luck."

Arkansas prison blood created a health crisis in Canada, and big problems for the Liberal party government of Jean Chretian. At least 42 thousand Canadians have been infected with hepatitis C, and thousands more with HIV, thanks to poorly screened plasma from a number of sources. More than seven thousand Canadians are expected to die because of it, and an estimated one thousand of those have died or will die from Arkansas prison blood.

"It's very,very painful. It's not supposed to be like this," says Denise Orieux. The Toronto mother has already lost one son to Arkansas blood, and another son is infected.

Michael McCarthy, faced with a slow death sentence from Arkansas prison blood, is known throughout Canada for leading the fight for justice for the victims: "My uncle's dead. I have another uncle sick. I'm sick with Hep C from this prison blood. Somebody in the States decided that for me, it was okay to get this stuff, that the money was important to provide prisoners with some cigarette money and millions of dollars left over to go into the coffers of the state of Arkansas."

The question is what did Bill Clinton know about the bleeding program? The program was operated by Gealth Management Associates, a private company. HMA, which provided all medical services for the prison system, was headed up by close friend of then Governor Clinton. Reports obtained by CBN news as well as press clippings suggest Clinton was fully aware of the medical problems at the prison.

To say HMA had some problems would be putting it mildly. An outside audit found HMA had a large number of medical personnel who had had their licenses revoked, and that HMA had "consistently failed to live up to its contract."

In 1982 and '83, the FDA shut down the plasma program for shipping contaminated blood, poor storage of blood components, and over bleeding of inmates. But rather than terminate the blood program, the prison's board of directors voted to change to name and open under a different charter. So, whenever there was a problem with the FDA or other authority, Galster says the name was changed from ADC Plasma to ABC (Arkansas Blood Components) to Pine Bluff Biological. HMA was finally dissolved in 1986, but another business took over the blood program and even expanded it. Arkansas prison plasma was collected and sold until 1994. "This program was so successful, it made so much money for the prison and for the people that were running the show, says Galster, "that they went to the prison hospital, the diagnostic unit where I worked most of the time, and set up a bleeding center there so that inmates that were sick in the hospital could go down twice a week and sell their blood. It's just incredible."

And when HMA came under fire in the Arkansas press for its problems, Galster alleges that then Governor Clinton organized a payoff plan to a judge as a way of keeping HMA in business. The media scrutiny forced Clinton to authorize a state police investigation of HMA. And records from that investigation show that more than one corrections official had heard of the bribe.

The White House told Canadian TV that "it's impossible to say the president knew. The accusations that President Clinton knew the blood was tainted are wrong." Galster replies: "It would be very difficult for Bill Clinton to say that he did not know what was going on. He would have to convince me he was never governor of the state of Arkansas."

The White House did not respond to our questions about Bill Clinton's knowledge of the blood program. Perhaps it's not used to questions, since there's been virtual media blackout on the story in the United States. When Galster brought tainted blood victims to the National Press Club in February, he was all but ignored by the media and Janet Reno's Justice Department.

But there is evidence that during President Clinton's first term, the White House was tracking the blood scandal very carefully. The man in charge of damage control is thought to be the late Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster.

White House Secretary Linda Tripp said that a few days after Foster's mysterious death in 1993, she took a phone call from someone who said Foster had been very concerned about a tainted blood issue. Tripp also said when she tried to enter data from the call into the computer of Vince Foster's secretary..."every time I entered a word that had to do with this particular issue, it would flash up either the word:encrypted" or "password required" or something to indicate the file was locked."

Galster, who knew Foster, believes the blood trail caught up with the Clinton's trusted friend and legal counsel in the summer of 1993. "Look at it this way: Canadians suddenly are infected and are dropping like flies. And they start their own little research and they backtrack this blood and find it comes from the state of Arkansas, and they find that the governor at the time that was tied up tightly in this medical system is now the president. They're going to call Foster."

And it was just as Canadian officials were launching a massive probe to uncover where the tainted blood came from that Foster was found dead.

THAT WAS THE END OF THE SYNAPSE OF THE BOOK THE BLOOD TRAIL PART 1 NEXT IS THE SYNAPSE OF THE BOOK THE BLOOD TRAIL PART l

Ron Brown's Death...

Plane Accident or MURDER?

CBN NEWS

The Blood Trail: Part II read The Blood Trail Part I

By Dale Hurd

CBN NEWS-- In the 1970's and '80's, the Arkansas prison system, under Bill Clinton's watch, was selling inmates' blood plasma for big money. Official dollar figures are low -- less than a million dollars per year. But some believe that, based on the market price of plasma, the number of inmates, and how often they were allowed to give blood, the plasma program may have generated several million dollars per year.

The program was run by an outside medical contractor, Health Management Associates, which was headed up by one of the governor's close friends. Health Management Associates had problems -- a lot of them. An outside audit found that HMA was employing doctors who had lost their licenses. AT least one had been a drug addict. One inmate was allowed to give blood 15 minutes before he died from kidney failure. Some inmates were paid for their plasma with drugs. Inmates say they were allowed to run the bleeding program with minimal and sometimes no supervision.

John was an inmate at Cummins Prison in Grady, Arkansas, and participated in the prison plasma program. "Most of the time you had just inmates running the place. You had the free people that were sitting in offices and stuff in there that they had, but most of the time you mostly had inmates, period, running it."

John Schock thinks he contracted hepatitis C through the prison plasma. It destroyed his first liver and he had to have a transplant. (picture of him here)

Schock said inmates could legally bleed once a week, but some donated much more than that. "You could pay and make arrangements with another inmate because inmates done most of the paperwork and running stuff around there, you know, and [you could] get your name back on the list and go in Saturday and Sunday."

HMA was investigated in 1981, - 82, -83, and -86. In 1982, The Food and Drug Administration cited HMA for overbleeding inmates, bad record keeping, and allowing medically unqualified inmates to bleed. It shut down the bleeding center Cummins Prison after plasma infected with hepatitis B was shipped to Canada and given to hemophiliacs. It was cited again in 1986.

But that wasn't the end of the bleeding program, thanks to the intervention of the Arkansas governor. And tainted prison plasma from Arkansas was distributed in Canada, the U.S., and other nations. Michael Galster accuses Bill Clinton of organizing a payoff scheme to keep a multimillion dollar plasma operation in business that resulted in the deaths of an estimated one thousand Canadians. Arkansas State Police looked into the bribery rumors and their reports show a number of prison officials had heard of a payment scheme.

The Arkansas blood scandal is part of a larger public health catastrophe in Canada in which 42 thousand Canadians are believed to be infected with hepatitis C, and thousands more with HIV, thanks to poorly screened plasma in Canada.

The White House dismisses allegations that then Governor Clinton knew about the tainted blood. Yet there's one indication that someone in the White House did.

In January, Linda Tripp was giving this sworn deposition about FBI files in the White House when she was asked about encrypted files on the computer of Deborah Gorham, secretary of the late Deputy White House Council Vincent Foster. In her answer, she mentions sometning that she obviously thought was strange.(picture)

"The word "encrypted", if I used it at all, did not have to do with FBI files. It had to do with another issue on Deb Gorham's machine when it was located in the west wing, prior to its being moved. And what I had told Lucianne Goldberg at the time was that what had been alarming to me was when I tried to enter data from a caller that I was working with on a tainted blood issue, that every time I entered a word that had to do with this particular issue, it would flash up either the work "encrypted", or "password required" or something to indicate the file was locked."

It could mean White House officials were tracking the tainted blood scandal, because they knew it could seriously damage Bill Clinton. It is what some call "the blood trail." And the blood trail leads all the way from Arkansas to Canada, where a story that most Americans have never heard of has dominated the front pages. Because in Canada it has involved billions of dollars in lawsuits and political fortunes, as well.

The scandal threatens to ruin the political career of the man dubbed as the next Prime Minister of Canada: the Liberal Party finance minister, Paul Martin. Martin served on the board of directors for a company that helped distribute the prison plasma. His problems only worsened when it was alleged that the Canadian government shredded documents and erased tapes to hide his role.

Canada's Krever Commission has documented the Arkansas blood connection, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has launched a massive investigation in Canada and the U.S. into what caused a national health catastrophe. But in Washington, it's a different story. The Justice Department, which did not return our call, is not believed to have shown any interest in the Arkansas prison plasma scandal.

Michael Galster,(picture) who worked in the Arkansas prison system and discovered sick and diseased inmates were giving blood without being tested, blew the whistle on the program. At a February 1999 press conference at the National Press Club, Galster called on the Justice Department to investigate, but says he's been "totally ignored."

In 1993, just months after an official inquiry into the blood scandal was launched in Canada, tainted blood files in the offices of the Red Cross in Quebec City burned in an arson fire. Last year, three months after Galster's press conference at the National Press Club, came two more criminal acts. On that same night, May 19,1999, just hours apart, criminals struck in Montreal and in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. In Montreal, a thief entered the off ices of the Quebec Hemophilia Society, stealing files on the blood scandal from this box, and taking a computer and phones. Pierre Desmarais is the Society Executive Director: "Nothing now will surprise me, so I don't even want to be paranoid about this whole issue. But we never know. I cannot say for a fact that it was related to the blood scandal, but if it is, somebody was really afraid of something."

A few hours later, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, an arsonist burned down most of Michael Galster's prosthetic clinic.(picture) "It's a parking lot now. It was about 4.000 square feet of our laboratory space. Our offices and exam rooms and computer-- it was all completely engulfed in flames when I got here on the evening of the 19th, early morning of the 20th. The fire trucks were pumping water into it, and by early the next morning, we only had a brick shell of what had originally been our business for 22 years," says Galster, explaining the damages.

Then in July of 1999, in an incident that may or may not be related, the lap top computer of a Toronto lawyer for the Canadian hemophiliacs who is investigating Bill Clinton's role in the tainted blood scandal was stolen.

Linda Tripp said there were encrypted blood files on the computer of Vince Foster;s secretary. In July 1993, Foster's body was found in Fort Marcy Park, Virginia, just outside Washington, in what was officially ruled a suicide.

During the time Foster died, a Commons committee in the Canadian Parliament had called for a major public inquiry into how Canada's blood supply became contaminated. And Foster was reported to be very upset about the issue.

Galster says that when Foster worked in Arkansas, Foster approached him in the legal role of defending Health Management Associates, the company that ran the prison blood program. Foster asked Galster to help bail HMA out of a malpractice suit. Galster thinks Foster was still cleaning up HMA's messes after he went to the White House. When the scandal exploded in Canada, Galster believes the blood trail caught up with Foster.

Blood scandals have rocked several nations. Some have forced officials to apologize. Other scandals have sent officials to jail. Now it could be America's turn. The surviving Canadian hemophiliacs are preparing a five billion dollar lawsuit against those responsible in the United States. That would most certainly include the state of Arkansas as well as Louisiana, which had a similar blood program. The Food and Drug Administration may also be sued, and the lead counsel for the Canadian hemophiliacs, David Harvey of Toronto, will be seeking a deposition from Bill Clinton on what his role in the program was. "We want to know, from Bill Clinton on down, who was involved in these decisions, how the decisions were made, what information they had, and why it is that Cummins [Prison} was allowed to continue as a blood source, even after all the dangers became obvious."

New York attorney Mark Bern is also preparing a class action lawsuit on behalf of Arkansas prison inmates who were infected with hepatitis C and HIV because of unsanitary conditions in the blood program.

Plasma from the Arkansas prison system was not only shipped to Canada, it was shipped around the world, including the U.S. It's not known how much of it was tainted. But the Arkansas prison plasma program continued through the worst years of the AIDS epidemic, until 1994. Galster and others believe thousands, may have died from it. "If Mr. Clinton as governor during those years had not allowed this contract to be renewed and had stopped it, as he was warned to do, this would have never lived past 1982, and thousands of lives would have been saved."

The Canadian victims and family members we talked to all hold Bill Clinton at least partially responsible for the tainted prison blood that found it's way to Canada. Some want retribution. Others, like Denise Oreux, who lost one son to Arkansas blood while another has been infected, would simply like an apology from Clinton. "I'm sure Mr. Clinton wasn't going out of his way to kill people. He wasn't thinking that way. I don't think he's that kind of a man. But he is capable of saying I made a mistake and I'm sorry.(picture of tainted blood)

James Krepner contracted HIV and hepatitis C from the prison plasma. "This is not a proud moment in Arkansas history and it's certainly not a proud moment in Bill Clinton's history. The reality is he allowed a program to function, to export blood, which killed many of my friends here in Canada."

Michael McCarthy, who is infected with incurable hepatitis C from Arkansas prison plasma and has seen one uncle die from the plasma while another uncle is sick, says, "I'd like Bill Clinton to spend one day in my shoes, or one of my friends shoes who are dying from HIV or Hep C, and realize the ramifications of his inability to act in a safe and responsible manner as governor of Arkansas when he could have shut down this program." And, McCarthy adds, "People will go to their graves knowing that [Clinton] paid a part in their death. So how do you sleep at night now, Bill?(picture of McCarthy)

Read The Blood Trail Part 1