In the UK, haemophiliacs were used as guinea pigs. Or chimps, actually. In a 1982 letter, Professor Arthur Bloom, a haematologist at the Oxford haemophilia centre where Neil Weller was treated, proposed testing the new heat-treated product on haemophiliacs. It had been tested previously on chimpanzees, but animal testing was expensive. Bloom decided that quality controls would be better – and less costly – if they were carried out on haemophiliacs who had not yet been exposed to large pooled products.34 The candidates were called PUPs, for previously untreated patients. Most were children. No
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