- Even the residents of Grady, Ark., call
it "godforsaken." It's an enclave of poverty where rampant drug
dealing contributes at least as much to the bleak economy as the main legitimate
business -- farming -- does.
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- But looming among the rows of cotton
outside this dismal Arkansas River Delta town, there used to be a more
profitable form of agriculture: human plasma farming. At the Cummins Unit
of the Arkansas penal system during the 1980s, while President Clinton
was still governor, inmates would regularly cross the prison hospital's
threshold to give blood, lured by the prospect of receiving $7 a pint.
The ritual was creepy to behold: platoons of prisoners lying supine on
rows of cots, waiting for the needle-wielding prison orderly to puncture
a vein and watch the clear bags fill with blood. Administrators then sold
the blood to brokers, who in turn shipped it to other states, and to Japan,
Italy, Spain and Canada. Despite repeated warnings from the Food and Drug
Administration, Arkansas kept its prison plasma program running until 1994,
when it became the very last state to cease selling its prisoners' plasma.
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- In a year when Arkansas scandals dating
back to his governorship have returned to haunt Clinton, this one nearly
toppled the government -- of Canada. Arkansas' prison-blood business created
a health crisis in Canada that nearly brought down the Liberal Party government
last spring. At least 42,000 Canadians have been infected with hepatitis
C, and thousands more with the HIV virus, thanks to poorly screened plasma.
Some of it has been traced back to the Cummins prison in Arkansas. More
than 7,000 Canadians are expected to die as a result of the blood scandal.
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- The Canadian Krever Commission, established
in 1993 to investigate the tainted-blood epidemic, concluded the government
did not adequately supervise the Red Cross of Canada, the agency responsible
for making sure that blood suppliers maintained adequate screening standards.
As a result of the scandal, the Red Cross has been stripped of responsibility
for the blood system. Compensation was offered to 1,000 people with AIDS,
but the Toronto Star estimates nearly 2,000 are suffering. More than 20,000
tainted-blood victims with hepatitis C filed a class-action suit against
the Canadian government, alleging that sloppy screening protocols allowed
tainted blood products from Arkansas prisons and elsewhere to make their
way into Canada. Last week the Canadian government established a $1.1 billion
(Canadian) fund to compensate some hepatitis C victims, but advocates say
the fund won't be enough.
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- Former Arkansas inmates who claim they
contracted hepatitis C and AIDS as a result of improper procedures are
also planning to bring a lawsuit against the Arkansas Department of Corrections,
Health Management Associates Inc. (HMA), Pine Bluff Biologicals -- the
two companies that held the prison's plasma contracts -- the state of Arkansas,
Clinton and his administration at the time. The White House did not return
calls seeking comment on the lawsuits.
-
- The scandals have received little media
attention here, but they tainted Clinton's years as governor. Some newspaper
columnists at the time said it could jeopardize his reelection. Two longtime
friends of Clinton's were embroiled in the mess: Leonard Dunn, a former
Pine Bluff banker and now chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller,
served as HMA's president; and Richard Mays, a Little Rock lawyer, judge
and Clinton ally, was hired in 1985 as an "ombudsman," an ill-defined
position that was supposedly created to help bring the prison medical system
into compliance with state standards. The exact payment Mays received,
or what his duties were, was never established, and became the subject
of a state police investigation because of allegations that it was actually
a "bribe" paid to a Clinton supporter to allow the program to
continue.
-
- Problems with the prison plasma program
were well known to Clinton throughout the 1980s. The FDA cited HMA for
safety deficiencies and shut it down for over a year in 1983, following
a recall of hepatitis B-tainted products that had been shipped to Canada
and distributed to hemophiliacs. In 1984, the FDA revoked the center's
license to operate, and in 1985, an inmate filed a lawsuit against HMA
for inadequate medical care. In 1986, Clinton's state police investigated
problems at the prison and found little cause for concern, while an outside
investigator looked at the same allegations and found dozens of safety
violations.
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- Now, more than a decade later, those
old Arkansas scandals are getting new attention, thanks to lawsuits and
agitation in Canada. To date, the scandal has gotten almost no media attention
in the United States. While reporters are riveted by the Monica Lewinsky
mess, they've ignored a real Clinton scandal, maybe because it involves
two groups no one cares much about -- people who aren't Americans, and
prisoners.
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- http://www.salonmagazine.com/news/1998/12/cov_23news.html
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