The Know Daily - Monday 20 May 2024

_{Read in 5m 24s ∙ Listening to Billie Eilish ∙}

A small herd of bison in Romania is helping to store CO2 emissions equivalent to removing 43,000 cars from the road for a year, according to new modelling from the Yale School of the Environment. The bison were reintroduced to the Țarcu Mountains in 2014, and the grasslands on which they live now capture roughly 10 times more carbon than before 🤯

📝 The infected blood scandal

The public inquiry into the infected blood scandal is due to publish its final report later today.

What’s the scandal about?
More than 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from 1970 to 1991 by contaminated blood products and transfusions, and around 3,000 have since died. It is widely regarded as the worst treatment disaster in the history of the NHS.

Two main groups were caught up in the scandal, said the BBC. The first includes haemophiliacs, who were given treatments imported from the US where blood was bought from high-risk donors. The second includes people who received blood transfusions. While this blood was not imported, some of it was contaminated, mainly with hepatitis C. 

What was the inquiry looking at?
The Infected Blood Inquiry - which took evidence between 2019 and 2023 - looked at what more should have been done to prevent people becoming infected, and whether there were attempts by the government or NHS to conceal what happened.

The inquiry revealed evidence that there were “ample warnings” about the dangers posed by a lack of blood screening and imported products, and that ministers had destroyed key files, said The Guardian. In April 2023, the inquiry’s chair Sir Brian Langstaff published an interim report which affirmed that “wrongs were done at individual, collective and systematic levels”. 

What will today’s report say?
It is expected to call for those responsible to face prosecution, The Guardian reported on Sunday. It is also expected to make further recommendations on compensation, with The Times reporting that the government plans to spend over £10bn on a scheme. 

The report’s findings will be presented at around 12:30pm today, with the Haemophilia Society saying it would “mark a seismic moment in the long fight for truth and justice”.