Word: fabius
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...frustrating as the case. Former French health secretary Edmond Herv?'s conviction on manslaughter charges in the long-running tainted-blood case was tempered by a suspended sentence, on the grounds that he had already been punished enough over the five years of the trial. Former prime minister Laurent Fabius and former social affairs minister Georgina Dufoix were acquitted for their involvement in the scandal, in which some 4,400 individuals were infected with HIV from tainted blood productsin 1985; 40 percent of those people have already died. A not guilty verdict had been anticipated, according to TIME correspondent Bruce...
...Indeed, rather than dwell on conspiracy, the verdict simply followed the bureacratic chain of command. The jury dimissed allegations that Fabius had delayed compulsory blood screening so as to favor a blood test manufactured by French company, and focused on where the buck stopped -- Herv?'s failure to stop the distribution of untreated blood supplies when their connection to AIDS was known. Perhaps the trial's most important legacy will be that the traditional French deference to elites has been shaken a bit, says Crumley. "This case has set a precedent to make people more willing to take politicians...
...issue is whether the three former Socialist officials -- Laurent Fabius, prime minister from 1984 to 1986, former secretary of state for health Edmond Herv? and former social affairs minister Georgina Dufoix -- should be held responsible for the government's failure to promptly implement the testing of blood at a time when it was already suspected to be a medium of transmission for the AIDS virus. Although the government was warned in March 1985 that almost all of the National Center for Blood Transfusion's stock was HIV-tainted, no action was taken for several months. The delay was responsible...
...there probably would have been no trial had the issue simply been a matter of lack of foresight. These were politicians, after all, not medical experts. However, Fabius, Herv? and Dufoix are accused of delaying the implementation of mandatory blood screening, even though government scientists had already vetted a test devised by Abbot, an American company. Delaying the final approval of that test was seen as a way to give a French company, Diagnostics-Pasteur, a crucial head start for its own product in what was expected to become a lucrative market. The fact that Fabius's health adviser...
...party by replacing its class-based ideology with a more modern, social democratic approach. The beetle-browed Emmanuelli, with his old-style leftist rhetoric, was more attractive to working-class voters and had the support of most party stalwarts, including former Prime Minister and longtime Jospin enemy Laurent Fabius. Emmanuelli's hold on the party machinery was so strong that many observers thought he had a lock on the nomination, even though polls showed him to be the weaker candidate...