A group of local HIV patients are appealing a US court decision that bars them from suing pharmaceutical giant Bayer, their lawyer said yesterday.
The hemophiliac patients say they contracted the virus from blood products sold in Taiwan in the 1980s by US-headquartered Cutter, owned by Bayer, their lead attorney, Michael Baum, said.
The Illinois Federal Court recently ruled that the Taiwan cases were barred by the statute of limitations, although the Taiwanese patients won a motion to proceed in California in January.
“We have filed notices of appeal,” said Baum, of Los Angeles-based law firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei and Goldman, which has represented 41 Taiwanese hemophiliacs and their relatives since 2003.
At the center of the dispute is a blood product called Koate, used in the early 1980s to make the blood of hemophilia patients clot in the event of injury.
Koate was made by Cutter, which was bought by Bayer in the 1970s.
TAINTED
Taiwanese health authorities banned the product in 1985 after it was found that the product had not been heat-treated and could be tainted with HIV.
But by that time, thousands of people had been affected worldwide, among them at least 53 patients in Taiwan, the Department of Health said.
“I was three years old when I contracted HIV,” said one of the patients, now 27. “My mom told me I took the drug only three times.”
DEATHS
Altogether 36 of the original 53 local patients have died, the patient said.
Cutter and most of the local hemophiliac patients reached an agreement in 1999, with each patient receiving up to NT$2 million (US$62,000).
The money was provided as humanitarian aid since Cutter said it had done nothing wrong.
However, the event developed a twist after the New York Times reported in 2003 that Cutter had continued to market the blood products in Asia even though it was aware of the risk, an allegation Bayer denied.
Bayer Taiwan declined to comment when contacted by reporters.
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