In this week's IEA Podcast episode, host Reem Ibrahim and guest Andy Mayer from the Institute of Economic Affairs discuss the appalling findings of the UK's Infected Blood Inquiry, which revealed over 30,000 people were infected with HIV and hepatitis C from contaminated NHS blood products in the 1970s-80s.
Mayer demonstrates the NHS, clinicians and governments of repeatedly failing patients by covering up risks for decades to avoid compensation, enabled by the NHS's lack of market incentives for transparency and innovation - a catastrophic institutional failure costing thousands of lives. Exploring why the NHS covered up the scandal, Mayer argues introducing market mechanisms to the blood supply could have prevented or resolved it sooner by driving higher quality suppliers, product diversity and safer treatment innovation.
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