The Poison Line

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

The shocking true story of the infected blood scandal: the worst treatment disaster in NHS history, which saw people infected with HIV by a revolutionary medical treatment and a cover-up from governments and the multi-billion-dollar plasma industry.

Factor VIII was billed as a medical miracle when it was put on the market in the late 1960s: a revolutionary treatment that meant people with haemophilia no longer feared a bleed might prove fatal. But as the treatment was rolled out, haemophiliacs began to contract hepatitis and AIDS in terrifying numbers.

Even as medical bodies and pharmaceutical companies tried to discredit whistleblowers and diminish the evidence, it became abundantly clear that the miracle treatment was infected. Factor VIII was killing the very people it promised to protect. And government embarked on a cover-up on an industrial scale.

Award-winning investigative journalist Cara McGoogan follows the survivors-turned-campaigners, the small-town lawyers and the fearless journalists who took on some of the most powerful interests in the world to uncover what really happened in the infected blood scandal.

© Cara McGoogan 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2023

Critics Review

Told with page-turning pace, a forensic grasp of detail and deep human compassion, The Poison Line is the gripping tale of a terrible scandal. It turns on the hubris of doctors, the folly of politicians and, above all, the greed of some of the world's biggest drug companies. At its centre, are the people - many of them children - who trusted those who promised to heal them and paid an unforgivable price for that trust. In telling their story, and laying bare a cover-up maintained over four decades, Cara McGoogan has done them - and all of us - an essential service
Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist
Beautifully written, as vivid as it is light-fingered, this is also a devastating piece of reportage. Books are routinely described as extraordinary, but this one really is
John Preston, author of Fall
In The Poison Line, Cara McGoogan masterfully unveils the depths of a scandal with precision and clarity. Through meticulous investigation and compelling storytelling, McGoogan not only brings to light the grave injustices suffered by victims but also underscores the vital importance of transparency and accountability in a world all too willing to hide uncomfortable truths. Her work serves as a beacon for those of us dedicated to uncovering facts in the service of justice and human rights
Eliot Higgins, author of We Are Bellingcat
A revelatory work of non-fiction . . . The Poison Line renders personal tragedy on a mass scale: it’s a shuddering achievement
Telegraph
Factor VIII was supposed to be a miracle treatment for the clotting disorder haemophilia but instead became an agent of death . . . pharmaceutical companies, governments and medical bodies conspired to keep the global scandal under wraps, despite whistleblower evidence. A deeply shocking account of medical injustice
Financial Times, Best Books of 2023
This is a vital account of the infected blood scandal and subsequent cover-up, which caused enormous harm to so many people. The truth must be told, no matter how hard it is, for the system to change
Andy Burnham
The motivation of the companies producing Factor VIII in the US was clear: profit . . . As McGoogan points out, the parallels with the present-day opioid crisis in the US are clear
London Review of Books
A powerful read . . . grounded as it is in emotive stories and dramatic language, while covering the more expansive international contexts in which medical decision-making takes place
Times Literary Supplement
Both a riveting thriller and a devastating investigation that is all the more infuriating and gripping because everything in its pages happened to innocent children and their families, in corporations' careless quest for profits. Once you plunge into this story, you will be holding onto your seat and turning the pages to see what terrible fate will befall young hemophiliacs who were kept in the dark for actual years about the fatal virus lurking in their medical treatments, and whether the doctors who violated their oath to protect their patients and the pharmaceutical companies who lied about their contaminated blood will finally get just punishment
Carol Leonnig, author of Zero Fail and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Cara McGoogan’s The Poison Line is a brilliant act of investigative cartography, tracking the virus-ridden blood packs from their source (a prison in Louisiana) to patients in the US, the UK and beyond
Prospect, Books of the Year 2023

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