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Hepatitis C

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Ann Marie and John: Parents of Christopher who died as a young adult.

ANN MARIE: I think that was round about the time that we asked about Christopher, whether he had hep C or not, and the reply was, 'Of course all the boys have got it'. I says, 'Well, it would be nice if somebody told us'.

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Carol G: Wife of Pete who died as an adult.

And then there was a whole new group of haemophiliacs who hadn't been infected with HIV, but suddenly had found out that they were infected with hepatitis C. And the tragedy was that initially this split the haemophilia community. Because the Haemophilia Society, which should have pulled everybody together to look at the whole injustice, didn't. The attitude was, 'Well you've had your money,' to the people with HIV, which is actually really cruel, because they didn't even know they had this second virus.

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David and Sue: Parents of Robert, who is living with haemophilia and HIV.

DAVID: I think it affected him worse than anything else because he was on Interferon for a year and in that year I met him a couple of times abroad, we used to go athletics meetings abroad and on two occasions when he's been there he's taken his Interferon and the next day he sort of laid on his bed, breathing slowly and thinking, "Oh God, don't let me die in some God forsaken town."

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Jan and Mel: Parents of Luke who died as a young adult.

MEL: And although he did have hepatitis, it didn't seem to affect him as much as some of the other things that he got later on in life. That was just a bit of technical information that you pick up along the way. Logged in and passed over very, very quickly, wasn't it?