Lord Clarke was strongly chastised in a report by Sir Brian Langstaff, leader of a seven-year probe into the crisis that killed over 3,000 and infected over 30,000 Britons with HIV and Hepatitis C via tainted blood supplies during the 1970s and early 1990s.
The politician served as health minister in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet from 1982 to 1985, then as health secretary from 1988 to 1990, before becoming home secretary and chancellor under John Major.
In 1985, he defined infections as “the unavoidable adverse effects which can unhappily arise from many medical procedures”.
