The "historical" trial on HIV and hepatitis C and the death of "more than a thousand people" has begun

Today, three former executives of the Hemophilia Foundation began to be judged orally, after 30 years, for mbadive contagion of HIV and hepatitis C patients between 1979 and 1991, and the plaintiff's attorney, Gonzalo Giadone, considered it "historical now." more than a thousand people have died "and because" for the first time in Argentina, the directors of the National Academy of Medicine are judged ".

The debate is taking place in a sole proprietorship court, under the authority of Judge Fernando Machado Pelloni, Prosecutor Patricio García Elorrio, and the prosecution of Drs. Pedro Raúl Pérez Bianco and Miguel de Tezanos Pinto and the Prosecutor. lawyer Eduardo Biedma.

"A historic process has just begun in the country, after 30 years of mbadive infections with HIV and hepatitis C, which have claimed the lives of over a thousand people. is historic because the directors of the Academy are judged for the first time in the Argentine National Medicine ", the lawyer Gonzalo Giadone, who represents the victims, said during a dialogue with Telam .

The three accused for infections attended the hearing in Room A of Comodoro Py 2002, as well as the affected patients and their families: the trial began by reading the elevation at an oral trial.

"This is a serious illness that has caused mbadive contagion and sometimes death," said prosecutor, María Alejandra Mángano, as she recalled reading his accusation.

"The defendants have not informed patients of the possibility of contagion," he said in the prosecution. "The spread was therefore multiplied for people who had regular contact with them without proper prevention, because the infected people did not know that they had been infected."

It was the application of antihemophilic factors 9 and 8 "knowing that they were unreliable" and that they "had been rejected by Japan and the United States. United, "he said in his request for trial.

From the beginning of the year 2000, some of the infected people began to die, whose names were recalled to the hearing.

For the prosecution, there was an "obvious carelessness" in the accused's professional duty: "A dangerous and contagious disease" as HIV has spread, the prosecution has been warned.

Pérez Bianco is currently retired physician, was medical director of the Foundation and currently lives in Arraial D'ajuda, Brazil.

Tezanos Pinto was a medical advisor to the Foundation and Biedma, secretary of the board.

After reading the prosecution, the defendants Pérez Bianco and Tezanos Pintos refused to avail themselves of the possibility of being investigated and asked to incorporate, after reading, the transcripts of their respective investigations at the investigation stage.

The third defendant, Biedma, announced that he was ready to answer questions that would be put to him at the next hearing scheduled for Monday, August 26.

In addition, 64 witnesses are expected at trial, including victims of contagion, relatives of the victims, doctors and nurses of the Hemophilia Foundation and former AFIP employees and customs.

The case was opened in 2005 by a complaint of the lawyer Gonzalo Giadone and fell first in the hands of the Federal Judge Claudio Bonadio, who was struck off the role by the Federal Chamber of Buenos Aires for putting an end to investigation.

The case was decided by a random draw before Judge Sebastián Ramos after the Federal Chamber overturned the dismissals for the crimes that Bonadio had dictated.

On this occasion, the cameramen Jorge Ballestero, Eduardo Freiler and Leopoldo Bruglia affirmed that Bonadio had departed from what the criminal court of appeal had already indicated that had already determined that the action was not extinguished.