13 October 2022: Tedder - B

In 1983, Prof Tedder had reason to communicate with the Department of Health (DH). Reference was made to his evidence to the Penrose Inquiry about the incident and what followed. He had wanted to discover what the DH and the NHS were planning to do about the issues surrounding infections arising from the use of blood. The clear impression he received was that the DH were not interested in his suggested intervention and that he should just go away and leave it alone. He had wanted to see public health surveillance for what was then called GRIDS, “Gay Related Immunodeficiency Syndrome”. In answer to a question to clarify something he had said, not for the first time he audibly smirked, apparently at his own clever word use.

As a more modern example of the same closed-minded thinking still being operant within the DH, he gave the example of how, at the onset off the Coronavirus pandemic, the witness had quickly developed robust serological tests, but these were similarly rejected by Government. It appeared that it was inconvenient to have an academic offer an effective test because there was no attached commercial value. If he had found a commercial developmental partner it might have been different, but he did not and so his technology did not make it into the thinking of the response to Covid. The issue of there being a vaccine for HBV but not for HCV meant that despite the parallels, there is a significant difference in how these are managed. Patients need to be counselled to find the correct HCV solution for them. One key barrier seemed to be the different approached of medical fields, such as between clinical virologists and epidemiologists. (This writer cannot but wonder at how these clinical fiefdoms can so easily put patients at such great risk, across the board, almost due simply to competitive professional conflicts and opinions. Where is the oversight and leadership to overcome such unnecessary adolescent attitudes to being in a gang?)

Counsel then reviewed with the witness the matter of Medical Research Council (MRC) and other funding. It is not difficult to see the connection between competing clinical fields when there is money and reputational empire-building up for grabs. It was drawn out how significant the negative impact was which arises from the poor way the UK prepares and resources preventative and preventable health crises. The witness recognised the competitive environment between academic establishments. It means that some very effective solutions, which are actually more cost-effective, are ignored due to the inadequate ways decisions are made. The witness again cited his very effective response to Coronavirus (according to him, of course) which was typical of the way decisions are made, especially when there is money to be made out of a crisis. Prof Tedder recalled a close colleague who was usually very even-tempered becoming completely frustrated (but still respectfully reserved) by the responses being received by DH in relation to the emerging issues in the early 1980s. An October 1983 meeting minute included the attendance of Bloom, Woolford, Galbraith (who had sent his apologies) and other key Inquiry characters, along with this witness. They were obviously talking to each other a lot, despite their collective memory losses. (Without seeking to cast aspersions on the witness at this point, sometimes the collective inability to recall certain memories looks like a good match to the situation of medical records being selectively filleted. (There was then the developing experience for observers to see the witnesses’ smirking being extended into a single short laugh which sounds like a quick dry laugh. It must be great to know how clever you are; or nervously reactive perhaps.)

The AIDS leaflet issue was mentioned. Prof Tedder had been one of the medics who had met with representatives of the gay community at the time the leaflet was being prepared. There had been a degree of push-back since it was asserted how the move to discourage men who had sex with men from donating blood would be prejudicial and discriminatory. The witness had actually advocated for a more robust approach to excluding higher-risk groups, but he was aware from situations like the meeting with these representatives of the challenges involved. He recognised the need to maintain the levels of donations at a known minimum as opposed to making the process of doing it more awkward due to a process of asking very personal questions that could lead to a significant number of donors no longer coming forward to voluntarily give their blood donations.

The session concluded by referring to a 1984 Radio 4 broadcast which covered the issue of people being reluctant to admit to any risky behaviours if they are asked in front of partners or work colleagues if they had at some point engaged in illicit drug use or had man-to-man sex. The motivation to not disclose would be very high. The witness had reviewed how these issues were handled in different places. Reference was also made to the study let by the witness into the viral outbreak among Prof Ludlum’s patients, known as the Edinburgh cohort. The issue appeared to be the unexpectedness of the outbreak which may not have fully recognised the likelihood of UK products becoming vulnerable to contamination due to recognised factors, such as was the case in Edinburgh of illicit drug use and the inevitability of the UK blood supply becoming exposed, even though that was voluntarily donated and not paid for like in the US. It was mentioned that there was more on the Ludlum topic to come.