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Blood Farm: The Explosive Big Pharma Scandal that Altered the AIDS Crisis
“A stunning investigation.” — Publishers Weekly How a miracle treatment turned deadly and changed the course of the AIDS crisis. By the mid 1980s, AIDS hysteria was so rampant that a fearful and prejudiced public ignored stories of gay men falling ill with lesions and mouth ulcers. President Reagan avoided mentioning the disease entirely. Then, as chronicled in Blood Farm , a new HIV-positive population emerged, one that included kids like Ken Dixon, Brad Cross, and Ryan White who had been infected as young as ten years old. But how? Unbeknownst to doctors and patients, pharmaceutical companies like Bayer, Baxter, and Armour collected plasma on skid row, in night clubs, and in some of America’s most notorious prisons to make Factor VIII, a new miracle treatment for hemophilia. Companies knew these practices put patients at high risk of HIV, but miracles are a lucrative business, so they knowingly sold an infected product and effectively played Russian Roulette with hemophiliacs’ lives. The results were catastrophic. In America, some 8,000 people with hemophilia contracted HIV; only 700 are alive today. Award-winning journalist Cara McGoogan daringly exposes an expansive map of corporate greed and negligence that led to one of the biggest overlooked medical scandals in history. Alongside her we meet survivors turned activists, determined small town lawyers, and fearless reporters desperate for justice. Their fight for retribution created a critical inflection point in the AIDS stigmas shifted, settlements were awarded, and, later, President George H.W. Bush signed into law the largest federal program on HIV. In shocking, riveting detail, Blood Farm uncovers how a miracle treatment became a deadly poison and forever changed our understanding of AIDS.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published October 10, 2023
20 people are currently reading
1432 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
July 2, 2024
This was the single saddest book I have ever read. Truly heavy to read but it gives a new understanding how the AIDs crisis effected so many people and the negligent system which created it.
Highly recommended if you are willing to cry, shout and be furious while reading (I would not recomend the autio book because that makes it that much heavier unless you are mentality perpaired)
Highly recommended if you are willing to cry, shout and be furious while reading (I would not recomend the autio book because that makes it that much heavier unless you are mentality perpaired)
January 23, 2025
I will be thinking about this book for years to come. It was so incredibly sad and infuriating. I was completely ignorant to the topic of how infected blood products led to the AIDS epidemic for people with hemophilia. Systemic failures all around and corporate greed cost so many innocent people their lives. The book dragged on a bit toward the end but overall I was totally enthralled.
October 31, 2023
Tragic does not begin to describe the events described in this journalistic account of the results of contaminated blood plasma used in treating hemophilia. Most of the reporting in the book covers hemophiliacs in Britain, and the author also touches on France and America, which experienced similar failures.
Step by step, we learn how young boys who had hemophilia were treated with several therapies that helped them live more normal lives. But when many of the boys contracted hepatitis, and then HIV, it was clear that something was wrong. Despite the evidence that one culprit was a therapy that involved using blood plasma, doctors hesitated. They didn't want to panic the boys and their families. They didn't want to jump the gun. The benefits outweighed the risks. Then after a few years passed, it would have been embarrassing to admit that they knew the plasma was contaminated.
By then, the drug companies that were selling the contaminated plasma (all the companies were American) had given the doctors involved so many financial incentives to keep quiet as well as to keep using the plasma so that they could use the data for research. By the time anyone blew the whistle, hundreds were dead. In the end, although the U.K. government was fold responsible in court and paid victims families a token amount, no one was really held to account. The pharmaceutical companies had changed names and ownership several times over, the doctors involved had retired or died, the government denied responsibility even as it paid claims.
It's possible to take hope from the fact that concerned citizens were able to bring the case to court finally and get some compensation, but I'm afraid that since no one was held responsible, it will happen again, and again.
Step by step, we learn how young boys who had hemophilia were treated with several therapies that helped them live more normal lives. But when many of the boys contracted hepatitis, and then HIV, it was clear that something was wrong. Despite the evidence that one culprit was a therapy that involved using blood plasma, doctors hesitated. They didn't want to panic the boys and their families. They didn't want to jump the gun. The benefits outweighed the risks. Then after a few years passed, it would have been embarrassing to admit that they knew the plasma was contaminated.
By then, the drug companies that were selling the contaminated plasma (all the companies were American) had given the doctors involved so many financial incentives to keep quiet as well as to keep using the plasma so that they could use the data for research. By the time anyone blew the whistle, hundreds were dead. In the end, although the U.K. government was fold responsible in court and paid victims families a token amount, no one was really held to account. The pharmaceutical companies had changed names and ownership several times over, the doctors involved had retired or died, the government denied responsibility even as it paid claims.
It's possible to take hope from the fact that concerned citizens were able to bring the case to court finally and get some compensation, but I'm afraid that since no one was held responsible, it will happen again, and again.
December 13, 2023
The book tells the story of a miracle cure turned deadly curse. In the 1980s, pharmaceutical companies developed a revolutionary new treatment for hemophilia called Factor VIII. It was a blood protein harvested from plasma and then injected directly into the hemophilia patient to improve clotting. It worked brilliantly and quickly replaced more expensive and more invasive techniques. It probably also saved a number of lives. However, as the book tells us, it quickly became clear that, because it was a blood product, it bore a certain risk of infection with hepatitis. Medical professionals thought it was such a miracle cure that it was worth the risk. Unfortunately, if you recall the history of the 1980s, a new virus emerged at just about that time: HIV. The book details how this Factor VIII ended up infecting thousands of patients with the virus that causes AIDS, leading to unknown amounts of suffering and thousands of premature deaths.
It's a fascinating read. Of course it has its certain biases, but it’s difficult to see much of an other side to this issue. I do think perhaps the author wrongfully criticizes some relatively early actions of pharmaceutical companies and doctors. The HIV virus was relatively unknown at the time, and though we can see the harm they caused with the benefit of hindsight, I do think there’s SOME room—perhaps a bit more than the author would afford—to understand that one needn’t be able to identify a villain in order to understand how tragedies can happen. It’s possible for the professionals involved to have done nothing wrong and for things to have still ended catastrophically. However, that’s not much of a criticism on my part because the book then goes on to detail how the same professionals—researchers, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies alike—took risk after risk (indeed even recruiting high-risk patients for plasma harvesting) and ignored warning sign after warning sign. There is indeed plenty of blame to go around here.
There are times when the author probably could have considered some of the ancillary questions a bit more deeply, though. For example, the author criticizes American pharmaceutical companies for paying patients for plasma donations instead of relying on entirely free donations. Her argument is that the introduction of monetary incentives increases the risk of harvesting from individuals likely to donate contaminated blood. It’s a fair argument. And in the case of the events depicted in the book, that’s exactly what happened. However, it seems a bit unfair to extend that criticism to the practice of paying for plasma itself without taking any time to consider potential counterarguments. One that comes to my mind is that the monetary incentive likely ensures a healthier supply of plasma that could be necessary in the manufacture of life-saving products, thus both saving lives and keeping costs down. It should be possible to avoid high-risk donors, screen donations for infection, and treat the resulting products for potential undetected infections without scrapping the entire system. And indeed, that’s what seems to have happened in the decades since the events of the book. Am I saying that counterargument is necessarily correct? I’m not. I’m simply pointing out that the author chose to omit counterarguments such as that one that might have complicated the portrait she was trying to paint of evil greedy pharmaceutical companies running out of control.
Perhaps that should be unsurprising, given the book’s subtitle uses the infantile phrase “big pharma” instead of bothering to spell out “pharmaceutical companies.” It’s clear the author takes issue with these behemoth corporations and that bias colors her reporting.
But, putting that criticism to the side, the fact remains that, at least in this instance if not in general (and that’s a question neither the author nor I should be trusted to answer and a debate into which I don’t have time to delve), a lot of people acted wrongly and it cost a lot of lives. Does the blame lie with “big pharma” as the book’s subtitle suggests? Absolutely. But not completely. The book also details malfeasance and negligence on the part of just about everyone involved, ranging from patients’ local doctors all the way up to the heads of government regulatory agencies from several different countries (but with a particular emphasis on the author’s own United Kingdom). And that really is a horrifying story because it’s not only a horrifying story for those involved but also a terrifying reminder of the fragility and corruptibility of the systems on which we rely in our increasingly technological and complicated societies.
In terms of style, the book alternates between personal stories of the victims and the “big picture” stories of the people responsible for the scandal and those who sought to expose what really happened. I think that’s a wise decision, as the former humanizes the story while the latter provides the detail necessary for a more objective analysis. However, I do think the author overemphasized the human stories a bit. Once I understood what happened to those people, I started to find those sections rather repetitive and wanted to get back to the medical and legal analysis.
All in all, I found the book flawed and somewhat biased. But I also found it quite engaging and important. It reminds us of a story whose full complexity only recently came to light, and provides some important context for events from history recent enough that it’s still in living memory for many of us.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
It's a fascinating read. Of course it has its certain biases, but it’s difficult to see much of an other side to this issue. I do think perhaps the author wrongfully criticizes some relatively early actions of pharmaceutical companies and doctors. The HIV virus was relatively unknown at the time, and though we can see the harm they caused with the benefit of hindsight, I do think there’s SOME room—perhaps a bit more than the author would afford—to understand that one needn’t be able to identify a villain in order to understand how tragedies can happen. It’s possible for the professionals involved to have done nothing wrong and for things to have still ended catastrophically. However, that’s not much of a criticism on my part because the book then goes on to detail how the same professionals—researchers, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies alike—took risk after risk (indeed even recruiting high-risk patients for plasma harvesting) and ignored warning sign after warning sign. There is indeed plenty of blame to go around here.
There are times when the author probably could have considered some of the ancillary questions a bit more deeply, though. For example, the author criticizes American pharmaceutical companies for paying patients for plasma donations instead of relying on entirely free donations. Her argument is that the introduction of monetary incentives increases the risk of harvesting from individuals likely to donate contaminated blood. It’s a fair argument. And in the case of the events depicted in the book, that’s exactly what happened. However, it seems a bit unfair to extend that criticism to the practice of paying for plasma itself without taking any time to consider potential counterarguments. One that comes to my mind is that the monetary incentive likely ensures a healthier supply of plasma that could be necessary in the manufacture of life-saving products, thus both saving lives and keeping costs down. It should be possible to avoid high-risk donors, screen donations for infection, and treat the resulting products for potential undetected infections without scrapping the entire system. And indeed, that’s what seems to have happened in the decades since the events of the book. Am I saying that counterargument is necessarily correct? I’m not. I’m simply pointing out that the author chose to omit counterarguments such as that one that might have complicated the portrait she was trying to paint of evil greedy pharmaceutical companies running out of control.
Perhaps that should be unsurprising, given the book’s subtitle uses the infantile phrase “big pharma” instead of bothering to spell out “pharmaceutical companies.” It’s clear the author takes issue with these behemoth corporations and that bias colors her reporting.
But, putting that criticism to the side, the fact remains that, at least in this instance if not in general (and that’s a question neither the author nor I should be trusted to answer and a debate into which I don’t have time to delve), a lot of people acted wrongly and it cost a lot of lives. Does the blame lie with “big pharma” as the book’s subtitle suggests? Absolutely. But not completely. The book also details malfeasance and negligence on the part of just about everyone involved, ranging from patients’ local doctors all the way up to the heads of government regulatory agencies from several different countries (but with a particular emphasis on the author’s own United Kingdom). And that really is a horrifying story because it’s not only a horrifying story for those involved but also a terrifying reminder of the fragility and corruptibility of the systems on which we rely in our increasingly technological and complicated societies.
In terms of style, the book alternates between personal stories of the victims and the “big picture” stories of the people responsible for the scandal and those who sought to expose what really happened. I think that’s a wise decision, as the former humanizes the story while the latter provides the detail necessary for a more objective analysis. However, I do think the author overemphasized the human stories a bit. Once I understood what happened to those people, I started to find those sections rather repetitive and wanted to get back to the medical and legal analysis.
All in all, I found the book flawed and somewhat biased. But I also found it quite engaging and important. It reminds us of a story whose full complexity only recently came to light, and provides some important context for events from history recent enough that it’s still in living memory for many of us.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
September 21, 2024
Blood Farm tells the heartbreaking story of how hemophiliacs in the late 1970s and 80s were offered a miracle treatment that turned out to be way too good to be true. While the product, Factor VIII, did essentially work, it was contaminated with strains of hepatitis from the beginning and eventually HIV as well, which spread throughout the hemophiliac community at an alarming rate, devastating many lives.
Most of the book focuses on events in the UK beginning with stories of some students at the Treloar School but we find out that the problem was mostly due to health care facilities using this product that was mostly imported from the US and produced by companies who were sourcing plasma from very high risk pools, including prisons. All the doctors and government agencies maintain that there was no way they could have known the risk and did everything they could with what was known. Come to find out, spoiler alert, the doctors knew very early on about the hepatitis contamination and were actually conducting studies for the pharma companies on unwitting subjects, having known about the infections and monitoring the progression and the companies doing the blood collecting were deliberately target advertising to high risk potential donors.
There had been some controversy in the early years of this debacle when the head of NHS wanted to make sure that the UK could become self-sufficient and produce their own blood products from voluntary donors within the UK. It had taken over 3 decades to have a government inquiry and still most would not admit that they messed up big time. Many laws and regulations changed in the UK and other countries after this, but not so much in the US. For example, in the US pharma companies can still pay for plasma which incentivizes high risk donors, whereas it was made illegal in the UK.
This was definitely an interesting and captivating read, given the tragedy of the situation (although I am no stranger to reading about the dark side of history), and a story that I surprisingly didn’t know about before. I sense some parallels here to recent events as well as events that predate this story. A great read, even if you don't agree with the author's conclusions that we can still trust these agencies and her attempt at a happy ending. That "happy" ending being, and this is the thing that really bugged me about this tragic documentary story, that although these most criminal and reprehensible of entities, the pharmaceutical corporations, who lied and deceived many and with backing from governments, succeeded in still convincing so many people that were affected by this scandal to get their c0v*d nineteen mRNA gene therapy shots! These big pharma corporations are easily documentable (Google Pfizer criminal history) habitual criminal offenders and have paid out some of the largest settlements in history! Needless to say, we should all be a bit more skeptical of any of the marketing ploys from these most evil of companies with the force of government for backup.
Still a great read and piece of documentary history about a lesser known scandal that we should all learn something from.
Most of the book focuses on events in the UK beginning with stories of some students at the Treloar School but we find out that the problem was mostly due to health care facilities using this product that was mostly imported from the US and produced by companies who were sourcing plasma from very high risk pools, including prisons. All the doctors and government agencies maintain that there was no way they could have known the risk and did everything they could with what was known. Come to find out, spoiler alert, the doctors knew very early on about the hepatitis contamination and were actually conducting studies for the pharma companies on unwitting subjects, having known about the infections and monitoring the progression and the companies doing the blood collecting were deliberately target advertising to high risk potential donors.
There had been some controversy in the early years of this debacle when the head of NHS wanted to make sure that the UK could become self-sufficient and produce their own blood products from voluntary donors within the UK. It had taken over 3 decades to have a government inquiry and still most would not admit that they messed up big time. Many laws and regulations changed in the UK and other countries after this, but not so much in the US. For example, in the US pharma companies can still pay for plasma which incentivizes high risk donors, whereas it was made illegal in the UK.
This was definitely an interesting and captivating read, given the tragedy of the situation (although I am no stranger to reading about the dark side of history), and a story that I surprisingly didn’t know about before. I sense some parallels here to recent events as well as events that predate this story. A great read, even if you don't agree with the author's conclusions that we can still trust these agencies and her attempt at a happy ending. That "happy" ending being, and this is the thing that really bugged me about this tragic documentary story, that although these most criminal and reprehensible of entities, the pharmaceutical corporations, who lied and deceived many and with backing from governments, succeeded in still convincing so many people that were affected by this scandal to get their c0v*d nineteen mRNA gene therapy shots! These big pharma corporations are easily documentable (Google Pfizer criminal history) habitual criminal offenders and have paid out some of the largest settlements in history! Needless to say, we should all be a bit more skeptical of any of the marketing ploys from these most evil of companies with the force of government for backup.
Still a great read and piece of documentary history about a lesser known scandal that we should all learn something from.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 26, 2023
I'm really at a loss for words about this book. This really hit me as I'm a stage 4 cancer survivor. I most likely will never know how or what gave me cancer. However HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis can be so preventable if you just know and can protect yourself. My heart is truly broken for everyone involved in this and everything they have had to endure. I have also done some social justice work in the USA mostly around Health Care and I wish I could say that what these big pharma companies have done is a huge surprise to me, but sadly it isn't.
The book as most have stated is mostly set in the UK, but some parts take place in the US where this all began and in some other countries such as France, Germany, Japan etc where it later spread. It primarily focuses on a blood product called Factor 8 in which hemophiliacs started to rely on to stop bleeds. It goes on to talk about how it became contaminated with various forms of Hepatitis and HIV/AIDS and the crisis that ensued when the Big Pharma companies knew it was in the product and did nothing about it.
The book is also mostly centered around the court cases and proceedings with everything that has happened. It's so disheartening to know that the battle rages on to this day even though this started happening as early as the late 70s. Some of the court cases were finally settled just earlier this year in 2023. Big Pharma and their lawyers hoping that all those infected would die off before getting a settlement reached.
Another hard part of the book for me was there were so many people involved from those who were infected, to spouses and children who were infected, to big pharma, lawyers, whistleblowers and doctors who knew and didn't care. It was hard to keep track of everyone and their key role in the story. It's also shattering how many peoples lives where completely destroyed and lost by this.
Overall this is a phenomenal read and should be read. This is something that should never be forgotten and hopefully we can learn from so this never happens again.
The book as most have stated is mostly set in the UK, but some parts take place in the US where this all began and in some other countries such as France, Germany, Japan etc where it later spread. It primarily focuses on a blood product called Factor 8 in which hemophiliacs started to rely on to stop bleeds. It goes on to talk about how it became contaminated with various forms of Hepatitis and HIV/AIDS and the crisis that ensued when the Big Pharma companies knew it was in the product and did nothing about it.
The book is also mostly centered around the court cases and proceedings with everything that has happened. It's so disheartening to know that the battle rages on to this day even though this started happening as early as the late 70s. Some of the court cases were finally settled just earlier this year in 2023. Big Pharma and their lawyers hoping that all those infected would die off before getting a settlement reached.
Another hard part of the book for me was there were so many people involved from those who were infected, to spouses and children who were infected, to big pharma, lawyers, whistleblowers and doctors who knew and didn't care. It was hard to keep track of everyone and their key role in the story. It's also shattering how many peoples lives where completely destroyed and lost by this.
Overall this is a phenomenal read and should be read. This is something that should never be forgotten and hopefully we can learn from so this never happens again.
January 13, 2026
Imagine a mother with two sons. Those two boys are her only children. Both contract HIV, leading to AIDS. One would die at 21, the other at 16.
I tell this story because the 16-year-old, Keith, was my best friend. We met in the 3rd grade. I was one of the pallbearers who carried his casket to his grave when he died during our sophomore year in 1994.
Over the years, I knew what caused Keith and his brother, Curt, to die before their time - big pharma and government in-action. Cara McGoogan's book, "Blood Farm," tells the tale through personal investigations, government inquiries, and the human toll in the U.S. and the U.K.
McGoogan's book follows how the promise of Factor VIII - a drug made from plasma to help hemophilics handle internal bleeding - became a vector for the spred of Hepatitis and HIV. An unsafe product due to the process behind its creation, profits won out over people and the thousands of lives lost and destroyed in the wreckage.
The story McGoogan shares is sad, harrowing, and, due to AIDS no longer being the death sentence it once was, vital for understanding why we need to hold big business and government accountable to the people.
I tell this story because the 16-year-old, Keith, was my best friend. We met in the 3rd grade. I was one of the pallbearers who carried his casket to his grave when he died during our sophomore year in 1994.
Over the years, I knew what caused Keith and his brother, Curt, to die before their time - big pharma and government in-action. Cara McGoogan's book, "Blood Farm," tells the tale through personal investigations, government inquiries, and the human toll in the U.S. and the U.K.
McGoogan's book follows how the promise of Factor VIII - a drug made from plasma to help hemophilics handle internal bleeding - became a vector for the spred of Hepatitis and HIV. An unsafe product due to the process behind its creation, profits won out over people and the thousands of lives lost and destroyed in the wreckage.
The story McGoogan shares is sad, harrowing, and, due to AIDS no longer being the death sentence it once was, vital for understanding why we need to hold big business and government accountable to the people.
June 4, 2024
I wish I could have given this 5 stars, and I debate if it should be 3 stars. It is clearly well researched, and it covers a really important topic. I learned quite a bit about how and why the AIDS crisis hit people with hemophilia. The problem is the book is not well written, and it desperately needs better editing. The book introduces so many people who were affected by AIDS and so many people in the medical community. I understand the desire to relate how many people were affected, but by the third chapter, I had given up trying to figure out who all the various people were. So many people with hemophilia were introduced that I just couldn't remember which ones were which. Same for the physicians who were introduced. It needed to be edited to focus on core people, so the reader can actually remember who was who.
July 15, 2024
Absolutely phenomenal. I had no idea about this scandal when I first started listening to McGoogan’s podcast, and it was eye-opening. The book is even more so - diving deeper into the unfolding of events and the fallout. This story is a great example of how we all share the same world, and even something happening to other people an ocean away can affect us all in devastating ways. My only complaint is that it’s not longer.
May 13, 2025
Fantastic book about how the “miracle” drug factor VIII that saved so many patients with hemophilia also infected so many of them with AIDS, Hepatitis C and B and with HTLV.
This book focuses on AIDS/HIV infections due to greed from the pharmaceutical companies “purchasing” Factor VIII/blood donations from donors who had risky behaviors.
This book is sad and highly educational at the same time.
Highly recommend it if you like history of Medicine and history in general.
This book focuses on AIDS/HIV infections due to greed from the pharmaceutical companies “purchasing” Factor VIII/blood donations from donors who had risky behaviors.
This book is sad and highly educational at the same time.
Highly recommend it if you like history of Medicine and history in general.
November 10, 2023
This book made me so angry. I never realized how the callous attitude of so many people led to hemophiliacs and their families dying. The patients were deliberately not informed about so many things and outright lied to about others. No one wanted to admit any responsibility. The whole thing was just tragic.
I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway.
I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway.
September 27, 2024
A really well written and interesting recounting of how big pharma essentially intentionally infected hemophiliacs around the world with HIV & Hepatitis. Well-written and heartbreaking in how it describes failures on multiple levels in preventing infections that ultimately took so many lives.
Absolutely rec!
Absolutely rec!
December 4, 2024
It does not matter the reason you pick up this book. Just pick it up.
Blood Farm gives the history of how Big Pharma played a key part in the AIDS crisis and really how it could have been prevented. From people being more focused on profit over people, to kids being studied without their knowledge, this book give you an eye opening experience.
Blood Farm gives the history of how Big Pharma played a key part in the AIDS crisis and really how it could have been prevented. From people being more focused on profit over people, to kids being studied without their knowledge, this book give you an eye opening experience.
March 17, 2025
This is a heart-wrenching account about the hemophiliac population and how they were affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 70s to 90s. This was a story with which I was unfamiliar but one that definitely needs to be told…shocking, despairing, infuriating. I listened to it in audiobook format and it was exceptional.
June 3, 2024
This is a depressing although not surprising expose of the pharmaceutical industry and their calous disregard for patient health in the pursuit of money. What is more surprising is how willing the doctors were to do the same to their own patients.
January 12, 2025
An account of how the administration and some doctors in UK not only didn’t protect their citizens with hemophilia, but in some cases used some without consent in research since they were “cheaper than chimps.” The tainted blood and plasma products came from the US. Thousands died unnecessarily.
March 9, 2024
A little repetitive toward the end, but still a 5 ⭐️ book
May 24, 2024
another example of why capitalism bad
May 30, 2024
capitalism, greed and corruption (redundant) are very scary things
August 12, 2024
This book should serve as a stark reminder that big pharma will *always* put a price on life. Especially in America. McGoogan did an amazing job gathering evidence and tying in anecdotal testimony.
December 2, 2024
When money and ego are more important than human lives. Thanks America !
March 24, 2025
Fascinating start but got too technical for me. Still very interesting to read about the contaminated blood scandal.
dnf
April 1, 2025Blood Farm is an interesting topic, but the narrative nonfiction writing REALLY hinders it.
October 7, 2025
Audiobook - very informative & tragic
January 23, 2024
I listened to Blood Farm on Audible in the interest of time since I was scheduled to interview the author Cara McGoogan for my podcast. The book is well-written and offers a deeper dive than the Bed of Lies podcast, which inspired the book. The whole scandal is disgusting; the pharma companies, government, and even doctors made baffling decisions to conceal the crisis, then delayed apologies and compensation for the cover-up. The riveting, unfortunate story further shook my confidence in medical and government institutions — perhaps a necessary reminder.
September 21, 2024
Blood Farm tells the heartbreaking story of how hemophiliacs in the late 1970s and 80s were offered a miracle treatment that turned out to be way too good to be true. While the product, Factor VIII, did essentially work, it was contaminated with strains of hepatitis from the beginning and eventually HIV as well, which spread throughout the hemophiliac community at an alarming rate, devastating many lives.
Most of the book focuses on events in the UK beginning with stories of some students at the Treloar School but we find out that the problem was mostly due to health care facilities using this product that was mostly imported from the US and produced by companies who were sourcing plasma from very high risk pools, including prisons. All the doctors and government agencies maintain that there was no way they could have known the risk and did everything they could with what was known. Come to find out, spoiler alert, the doctors knew very early on about the hepatitis contamination and were actually conducting studies for the pharma companies on unwitting subjects, having known about the infections and monitoring the progression and the companies doing the blood collecting were deliberately target advertising to high risk potential donors.
There had been some controversy in the early years of this debacle when the head of NHS wanted to make sure that the UK could become self-sufficient and produce their own blood products from voluntary donors within the UK. It had taken over 3 decades to have a government inquiry and still most would not admit that they messed up big time. Many laws and regulations changed in the UK and other countries after this, but not so much in the US. For example, in the US pharma companies can still pay for plasma which incentivizes high risk donors, whereas it was made illegal in the UK.
This was definitely an interesting and captivating read, given the tragedy of the situation (although I am no stranger to reading about the dark side of history), and a story that I surprisingly didn’t know about before. I sense some parallels here to recent events as well as events that predate this story. A great read, even if you don't agree with the author's conclusions that we can still trust these agencies and her attempt at a happy ending. That "happy" ending being, and this is the thing that really bugged me about this tragic documentary story, that although these most criminal and reprehensible of entities, the pharmaceutical corporations, who lied and deceived many and with backing from governments, succeeded in still convincing so many people that were affected by this scandal to get their c0v*d nineteen mRNA gene therapy shots! These big pharma corporations are easily documentable (Google Pfizer criminal history) habitual criminal offenders and have paid out some of the largest settlements in history! Needless to say, we should all be a bit more skeptical of any of the marketing ploys from these most evil of companies with the force of government for backup.
Still a great read and piece of documentary history about a lesser known scandal that we should all learn something from.
Most of the book focuses on events in the UK beginning with stories of some students at the Treloar School but we find out that the problem was mostly due to health care facilities using this product that was mostly imported from the US and produced by companies who were sourcing plasma from very high risk pools, including prisons. All the doctors and government agencies maintain that there was no way they could have known the risk and did everything they could with what was known. Come to find out, spoiler alert, the doctors knew very early on about the hepatitis contamination and were actually conducting studies for the pharma companies on unwitting subjects, having known about the infections and monitoring the progression and the companies doing the blood collecting were deliberately target advertising to high risk potential donors.
There had been some controversy in the early years of this debacle when the head of NHS wanted to make sure that the UK could become self-sufficient and produce their own blood products from voluntary donors within the UK. It had taken over 3 decades to have a government inquiry and still most would not admit that they messed up big time. Many laws and regulations changed in the UK and other countries after this, but not so much in the US. For example, in the US pharma companies can still pay for plasma which incentivizes high risk donors, whereas it was made illegal in the UK.
This was definitely an interesting and captivating read, given the tragedy of the situation (although I am no stranger to reading about the dark side of history), and a story that I surprisingly didn’t know about before. I sense some parallels here to recent events as well as events that predate this story. A great read, even if you don't agree with the author's conclusions that we can still trust these agencies and her attempt at a happy ending. That "happy" ending being, and this is the thing that really bugged me about this tragic documentary story, that although these most criminal and reprehensible of entities, the pharmaceutical corporations, who lied and deceived many and with backing from governments, succeeded in still convincing so many people that were affected by this scandal to get their c0v*d nineteen mRNA gene therapy shots! These big pharma corporations are easily documentable (Google Pfizer criminal history) habitual criminal offenders and have paid out some of the largest settlements in history! Needless to say, we should all be a bit more skeptical of any of the marketing ploys from these most evil of companies with the force of government for backup.
Still a great read and piece of documentary history about a lesser known scandal that we should all learn something from.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 11, 2023
I rated this book 4/5 stars. This book reminded me a lot of Radium Girls, in that it talked about a relatively unknown moment in history where horrible practices were brought to light only after lives were torn apart. There is some heavy content, both in terms of the graphic nature and dense historical information. If you're looking to learn more, this book will likely be very interesting to you.
December 6, 2023
A compelling journalistic account of the tragic and widespread infection of hemophilia sufferers with HIV from the Factor VIII wonder drug that was supposed to make their lives easier, not shorter. McCoogan tells this story by first describing the earliest infections in a British boarding school, expanding to a global web of greed and secrecy, largely benefiting US Pharma.
The writing got tedious at times, but the information was too infuriating to put down. I am more familiar with this shameful part of medical history than many because of a friend with hemophilia who was infected through a transfusion and died at 25, a member of the Committee of Ten Thousand. Even with that insight, I was shocked by how recently the last legal chapters played out, how many died without that limited justice.
The writing got tedious at times, but the information was too infuriating to put down. I am more familiar with this shameful part of medical history than many because of a friend with hemophilia who was infected through a transfusion and died at 25, a member of the Committee of Ten Thousand. Even with that insight, I was shocked by how recently the last legal chapters played out, how many died without that limited justice.
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