Health Management Associates (Arkansas Company)
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Health Management Associates is a defunct
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
-based company involved in a blood-management scandal during the 1980s.


HMA scandal

The Health Management Associates Scandal refers to the sale of tainted blood from HMA (a now defunct American company based in Arkansas) to
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
blood bank A blood bank is a center where blood gathered as a result of blood donation is stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusion. The term "blood bank" typically refers to a department of a hospital usually within a Clinical Pathology laborat ...
s. HMA was contracted by the state of
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
to provide health care to prisoners in the state of
Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...
in the early to mid-1980s. This arrangement allowed HMA to collect blood from the prisoners. The blood, some of it proven to be infected with
HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...
and
hepatitis C Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection people often have mild or no symptoms. Occasionally a fever, dark urine, a ...
, was found in the Canadian blood supply. It was not found in American supplies because of a ban on prisoner blood use. The president of HMA at that time was Leonard Dunn, a close friend of
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
and
Vincent Foster Vincent Walker Foster Jr. (January 15, 1945 – July 20, 1993) was an American attorney who served as deputy White House counsel during the first six months of the Clinton administration. Foster had been a partner at Rose Law Firm in Litt ...
. He chaired Clinton's re-election campaign and was appointed by Clinton to the Arkansas Industrial Development Commission. Foster committed suicide on July 20, 1993. Conspiracy theorists have tried to link his death to HMA and the
Whitewater Scandal The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, Whitewatergate, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their ass ...
to prove he was murdered.


The Krever Report

Justice Horace Krever led a Royal Commission (public inquiry) in 1993 which uncovered the Arkansas prison blood scheme, as he reported in 1997. The primary purpose of the report was to work on ways of improving the Canadian blood system to avoid similar problems in the future. Also, the report makes mention of similar problems with prisoner blood collection practices in Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi, as well as concerns about blood in general from San Francisco.


See also

*
Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada The tainted blood disaster, or the tainted blood scandal, was a Canadian public health crisis in the 1980s in which thousands of people were exposed to HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products. It became apparent that inadequatel ...
*
Contaminated haemophilia blood products Contaminated hemophilia blood products were a serious public health problem in the late 1970s up to 1985. These products caused large numbers of hemophiliacs to become infected with HIV and hepatitis C. The companies involved included Alpha Ther ...
* Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal *
Contaminated haemophilia blood products Contaminated hemophilia blood products were a serious public health problem in the late 1970s up to 1985. These products caused large numbers of hemophiliacs to become infected with HIV and hepatitis C. The companies involved included Alpha Ther ...


References

{{reflist


External links


Tainted Blood from Arkansas


Medical controversies in Canada Contaminated haemophilia blood products Medical and health organizations based in Arkansas Medical scandals in the United States