Contaminated blood destroys the UK's comfortable myths

The infected blood scandal is the most awful riposte to optimistic stories the British tell themselves. 

Over 50 years the revered National Health Service engaged in “a chilling cover up”. 

The needless deaths of 3000 patients and thousands more infections with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated haemophilia drugs and blood transfusions was a “calamity” which “could and should” have been avoided, Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry concluded.

I have rarely read a document as damning as Sir Brian’s report. 

This scandal did not begin innocently, the risks were well known but ignored.