Date: Thu Feb 13, 2003 7:43 pm
Subject: Factor 8 Media contacts


Dear friends;

Thanks to everyone who's written to Nancy Abraham of HBO/Cinemax, and Laura Thomson at TLC/Discovery Channel requesting that they air FACTOR 8: THE ARKNSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL.

We NO LONGER NEED TO WRITE TO LAURA THOMSON OF TLC/Discovery Channel, as she is assisting us in placing this film, and further emails are just beginning to annoy her, so PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY MORE E-MAILS TO HER!

However, we do still need for everyone who hasn't already done so so to continue to e-mail Nancy Abraham at HBO/Cinemax and encourage her to find a slot in their programming for this vital film.

Please just tell her in your own words why you feel it's so important that Americans have access to this information.

For those who don't know, this film is about the plasma center run for more than 20 years by the AR DOC, through which they took plasma from prisoners they knew to be infected with hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, herpes and all other diseases. The plasma was sold to companies which made it into medicines which have sickened and/or killed tens of millions of people all over the world. Some of the crimes committed by the AR DOC which are documented in the film are:

- They re-used needles and tubing in the collection of the plasma

- They took needles out of the arm of one man, wiped it down and then inserted it into the arm of the next man

- They re-sharpened the needles using sand paper

- When tests for disease were performed, the results were often falsified

- They over-bled prisoners, taking more than a single unit during each session

- They permitted the plasma to thaw, making it unviable, then re-froze and shipped it

.... and many more crimes. I don't want to give away the whole film ...

The people who ran the program were nurses in the Cummins Unit Infirmary and/or doctors who worked for the HMO contracted to provide health care to the AR prisoners. They are now the Superintendent of the AR DOC, the Medical
Administrator of the AR DOC, an Asst. Warden at the Cummins Unit; an attache to AR Lt. Governor Rockefeller, AR state senators and representatives; and the "doctor" who owned and operated this whole mess is NOW running the HMO
contracted to provide health care to prisoners in Alabama.

They continue to prosper and gain more power and influence while their victims all over the world continue to sicken and die. These men have murdered more innocent people than Adolph Hitler did. I don't want them to get away with it.
I hope you feel the same way.

Please drop a brief note to Nancy Abraham and ask her to air Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal. Victims groups from all over the world have tried to get justice, and America has ignored them because the American media has refused to let the people of this country know about this American-made atrocity. ONLY when the American public demand justice will it come to pass.

Please be a part of bringing these people to justice!

Thanks a million!

LINDA TANT MILLER
PRISON REFORM UNITY DAY 2003 IS OCTOBER 18
PRISON REFORM UNITY PROJECT - PRUP

Date: Mon Feb 10, 2003 10:54 am
Subject: Tainted Plasma Film, Media Contacts Info


Dear Friends:

As many of you know, I became an activist in an attempt to bring to justice those prison administrators and "medical personnel" who ran the notorious Cummins Unit plasma center, through which MILLIONS of people all over the world
have been infected with hepatitis and/or HIV/AIDS and all other blood-borne diseases, and to help obtain compensation for the victims and/or their survivors.

Among those guilty of global murder in the implementation of the plasma center are the current ADC Superintendent, Larry Norris; the current ADC Medical Administrator, John Byus; Current Liason to AR Lt. Governor Rockafeller,
Leonard Dunn; and "Dr." Francis (Bud) Henderson. "Dr." Henderson was the owner of Health Management Associates, the HMO contracted to provide health care to
AR prisoners and run the plasma center. Today "Dr." Henderson is Chairman of NaphCare, the HMO currently in charge of denying medical care to prisoners in Alabama.

The culmination of my effort to bring these "men" to justice and provide their victims compensation is finally dawning, but we need your help to make sure the facts of this atrocity are made available to the American public so that they
may have the opportunity to demand justice.

After harvesting plasma from prisoners they KNEW to be infected with blood-borne diseases, the Arkansas Department of Correction sold it to pharmaceutical companies called Fractionators. The Fractionators pooled the plasma into vats containing hundreds of gallons of plasma, and produced
medicines from it:

Cryoprecipitate, Factor 8 and Factor 9 are blood clotting agents, used to control hemmorhaging. These products made from disease-infected plasma, have infected millions of people and have wiped out virtually all of the males in
some families of hemophiliacs.

Fibrinogen, another blood clotting agent made from human plasma, is most often administered to control severe bleeding during and after childbirth. It's estimated that between 10,000 and 3 million young mothers and their children in Japan alone, are sick and/or dying from administration of this medicine.

Information about this INTENTIONAL global mass murder of innocents has been available to the people of the rest of the world for years, while the American media have thus far maintained an almost complete blackout of this story. Even
when more than 3,000 Canadian hemophiliacs who had been infected through contaminated blood products held a protest and news conference in WA DC, NO U.S. media reported it!

There have been a few news articles about it in limited-distribution mediums; in 1999 CNN did a 10 minute report they got ALL WRONG; and also in 1999, the 700 Club did a mediocre 2-part series about it, but no one has yet reached
enough people with enough information to mobilize the American people to demand justice in this case. MOST Americans are completely unaware of it.

Although documentaries about this atrocity have been aired in the UK, Canada, Scotland, Ireland, Japan, and a couple of countries I can't think of right now, NO WHERE has THE ENTIRE STORY, from the mouths of the participants yet been
told - until now. My friend and associate, Kelly Duda of Concrete Films has just completed the production of his film FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL, and has submitted it to HBO/Cinemax as well as to TLC/Discovery
Channel, both of which are considering whether they will air it.

Kelly has been the source of MOST of the information the world has about this to date, and now he has put it all together in his own film.

Some of those appearing in the film are John Byus and "Dr." Bud Henderson, who sweat and lie their way through it, until they slip up and admit "mistakes were made"; Mike Galster, former ADC doctor who wrote the novel "Blood Trail", and
whose clinic was firebombed while he was assisting on this film; a medical professional who worked at the plasma center while he was in college, and whose life was threatened if he ever spoke about it; current prisoners, who have suffered various forms of retaliation by the ADC for their cooperation in the making of this film; and a former prisoner who worked in the plasma center "disappeared" soon after his filmed interview with Kelly.

The purpose of this letter is to ask you to e-mail HBO/Cinemax as well as TLC/Discovery Channel, and ask them to air "FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON
BLOOD SCANDAL"

At HBO/Cinemax, please e-mail:

Nancy Abraham
VP, Original Programming, Documentaries
nancy.abraham@h...

At TLC/Discovery Channel, please e-mail:

Laura Thompson
Acquisitions and Programming
laura_thompson@d...

These ladies have the power to air this film or not, so it's REALLY IMPORTANT that we flood their In Boxes with requests to see this film.

I give you my absolute word of honor that YOU WANT TO SEE THIS FILM!!! EVERYONE in the world - and especially those in America - NEED to see this film.

For more information about this atrocity, please visit my web site, My Brother was a Blood Cow for the Arkansas Department of Correction http://www.geocities.com/bloodcows

The link titled "The Plasma Center" is a first-person account of the working of the center, written by inmate Rolf Kaestel, former Editor of the Cummins Unit's Inmate Newspaper, The Long Line Writer, and author of most of the Dark
and Evil World web site at ttp://www.maxpages.com/darkevilworld
They transferred Rolf to Utah where he can't expose them any more.

The link titled Blood Trail will take you to the Free Republic's archives of news articles from around the world about the tainted blood scandal.

The link titled Blood River is the story of my family's involvement with the plasma center, and our struggles with the ADC during the course of my brother's
dying.

I implore everyone to write to Ms. Abraham and Ms. Thompson right now. Just a one-line message saying, "Please air FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD
SCANDAL" will do, if that's all you have time for. If we overwhelm them with interest, they will be sure to air this program, and if America is still America, justice and compensation will soon follow.

Peace and blessings,

LINDA TANT MILLER

The email campaign to air this film has been stopped, but the info about this film is STILL vital for people to see!

Menolly

I got a few emails from Ms. Miller about this film. She was going to try to have a note added at the end about Dr. Henderson and Alabama - she was under the impression that "Bud" had retired and was living in Florida.

PLEASE keep us updated on this film - when and where it will air.

Will do, Danielle!

All MY Love,
Menolly

Opinion - Mara Leveritt



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


A bloody business and our hand in it
By Mara Leveritt
Nov. 13, 1998


Last month in Ottawa, the east lawn of Canada's Parliament hill was covered with 7,000 small white crosses. Each represented a Canadian citizen who has died or who is expected to die from having received contaminated blood. Some of the contamination that is killing Canadians has been traced to Arkansas. Worse, it has been traced to a state-run facility. Canadians are demanding answers. They want to know how their country's blood distribution system could have failed them so badly. It is time that we, who are on the exporting end of this tragedy, demanded some answers too. Essentially, here's what happened:

Even before the discovery of AIDS in the early 1980s, many groups began calling for increased scrutiny of the sources of blood used for medical purposes. Blood or plasma taken from prisoners was deemed particularly risky because of the heightened incidence of intravenous drug use and homosexual contact among inmates. The Red Cross in Arkansas, as well as in Canada, had quit using prison blood products by mid-1970. In 1982, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked American blood companies to stop accepting blood and plasma from high-risk groups, including prison inmates. Nonetheless, many prisons, including units of the Arkansas Department of Correction, continued to allow inmates to offer their plasma for sale. The rationale was that, since Arkansas does not pay inmates for work, they needed some source of money. This was the only one the department approved.

It did this knowing that most of the plasma would be shipped to Third-World countries, since markets for prison plasma in most of the industrialized world had almost entirely dried up. The ADC worked out an agreement with Health Management Associates Inc. of Pine Bluff to run the program and sell the inmate plasma, reportedly for about $50 per unit. Inmates received from $5 to $10 of that price, depending on the plasma's marketability. The ADC--which is to say the State of Arkansas--also took a cut. Some years, officials reported, the program netted the department more than $50,000, money which they said was used to supply medical services at the prisons.

HMA sold the Arkansas prison plasma to North American Biologicals Inc., which sold it to a Montreal-based blood broker, Cryosan Ltd. Cryosan sold the plasma to Connaught Laboratories in Toronto, which, in turn, supplied it to the Canadian Red Cross. Connaught maintains that shipping papers accompanying the plasma did not reveal that the collection center was located in a prison. Rather, they simply referred to the source as the "ADC Plasma Center, Grady, Arkansas," without offering any indication of what the "ADC" stood for. The Canadian Red Cross was equally in the dark.

In mid-June 1983, HMA reported that 38 units of plasma had been taken from four inmates at Cummins prison who should have been disqualified, based on a history of hepatitis B. Connaught was not notified of the problem until mid-August. By that time, the plasma had been used to manufacture 2,409 vials of concentrated clotting factor for use by hemophiliacs. A recall was issued, but only 417 of the vials were still available to be recovered. A second incident involving a fifth Arkansas inmate who had tested positive for hepatitis B led to the attempted recall of another 1,968 vials. Only 27 of them were retrieved.

The following year, the U.S. FDA revoked the ADC's license for manufacturing source plasma, citing a litany of potential hazards. Among other things, the FDA said that HMA, the Arkansas company administering the program, was using inmates who had been previously disqualified because of a history of hepatitis; had failed to note on the plasma whether testing had been done for signs of hepatitis and syphilis; kept inaccurate and incomplete records; altered records; and had shown willful disregard of standards. The license was quickly reinstated, however, and the bleeding of inmates continued.

By the end of the 1980s, all U.S. prison systems had quit drawing inmate plasma--all, that is, except Arkansas's. When I interviewed John Byus, the ADC's medical director, in February 1991, I asked him how long the department intended to continue the practice, in light of the fact that the National Hemophilia Foundation, the International Red Cross, and the World Health Organization all considered the risks inherent in it too great. Byus replied, "We plan to stick with it to the last day, to the last drop we're able to sell." Our state ended the program later that year, but not from any sense of responsibility. The scandal had left its mark. There was simply no one left on earth willing to buy what we had to sell. At present, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are conducting a criminal investigation into Canada's part of the tainted blood scandal. Should we on this end do any less?


Copyright ©1998 Arkansas Writers' Project, Inc.

I think this needs to be aired on the major networks, too. Not everyone has the show channels. I think it should be shown on channels more people have access to to get wider coverage. Even PBS would be a good place to get it aired. I want to see it, but I just have basic cable channels.