INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT By Jeremy Hainsworth
A class in itself
Health-care class actions provide unique challenges in mitigating risks.
Tainted blood. Those two words evoke panic, even horror. But, when it's an organization like the Red Cross holding the public trust that's involved, the stakes are high and everyone's playing hardball. That's just what happened after thousands of people became infected with HIV and hepatitis C when blood supplies were not screened properly in the 1980s. With a federal payout set by an Alberta court at more than $1 billion, the
tainted-blood case became the highest profile health-care class action in Canadian history. While doctors Roger Perrault, Wark Boucher, and John Furesz, as well as Armour Pharmaceutical Co., and its former vice president Dr. Michael Rodell faced four charges of criminal negligence and one count of commission of a com- mon nuisance, all were found not guilty.
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