Introduction
It is estimated that in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s, 14,000 people contracted Hepatitis C from blood transfusions, and more than 1,200 haemophiliacs were infected with HIV following treatment with imported Factor VIII, a blood-clotting agent. Many nonhaemophiliacs were also infected with HIV following blood transfusions and tissue transfer du ring that time.1 Claims in negligence against a number of Government agencies responsible fo r the blood supply were commenced in respect of the HIV infection2 but proceedings were not pursued after negotiations with the Government led in 1988 to the creation of a compensation scheme for those that had contracted post-transfusion HIV infection, a scheme now administered by the Macfarlane and the Eileen Trusts. The quest for compensation by those that contracted post-transfusion Hepatitis C has only recently, however, been successful, and only partially at that. On 26 March 2001, the case of A and others v National Blood Authority and another3 made legal history for being the first case in the United Kingdom to succeed against the producer of a medical product. The case, brought under the strict liability provisions of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (CPA), which implemented the Product Liability Directive (the Directive)4 involved claims by some of the English victims of post-transfusion Hepatitis C infection, and signified the success of some of the reforming aspirations motivating the introduction of the Directive