It is 1986. A blood test to screen for non A, non B Hepatitis, costing just 5 cents per test, has been shown to significantly reduce the amount of contaminated blood being collected and given to people needing transfusions. It is not a specific test, so it also rules out a small percentage of healthy donors due to occasional false positive results. Blood banks throughout the US are using the test for medical, ethical and legal reasons. What was Australia to do? Queensland’s Blood Service started using the test but no other Australian blood service did so. Many thousands of people were infected as a result. Elizabeth Minter reports in this third of her series on Australia’s infected blood scandal.
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