The Poison Line

The shocking true story of how a miracle cure became a deadly poison, and the lengths that big pharma and government went to cover it up

‘Essential reading’ Jonathan Freedland, author of The Escape Artist

‘Cara McGoogan is an indefatigable detective and a born storyteller’ Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars

It has been called the worst treatment disaster in the NHS’s history. But when it was first used Factor VIII was pitched as a medical miracle- a drug made from human plasma that enabled haemophiliacs to lead lives free of fear that a minor injury would prove fatal. But in the 1980s, tens of thousands of haemophiliacs began to test positive with HIV and AIDS. Their life-saving treatment Factor VIII was infected.

Award-winning journalist and host of the Bed of Lies podcast Cara McGoogan traces the line of infection, corruption and corporate greed back to four pharmaceutical companies who sourced plasma from American prisons, nightclubs and on Skid Row in LA, turned it into Factor VIII, and then sold it around the world. Plasma is a multi-billion-dollar business- even when HIV contamination was discovered in the blood supply, Factor VIII continued to be used. In the UK alone, some 1,500 people would die from HIV and hepatitis C infections. There was a scramble to cover-up any wrongdoing on the part of various institutions, pharmaceutical companies, politicians and doctors.

Defying the odds after a decade of illness, death and unanswered questions, patients started to survive – and they wanted to fight. Survivors had no choice but to become campaigners. A Public Inquiry was launched. The Poison Line asks some of the most searching questions facing us today- Who can we trust? Whose lives are expendable? And how does wrongdoing get covered up? In a masterly work of narrative and storytelling, this book brings the full truth out into the light for the very first time.

‘An important and mostly unknown story of pharmaceutical malfeasance and greed with devastating and lethal consequences’ Gerald Posner, author of Pharma- Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America

Author Biography

Cara McGoogan is the Telegraph’s first Narrative Audio Journalist. She is the award-winning writer and host of the documentary podcast Bed of Lies, which investigates major scandals people should know more about. Cara won a Society of Editors’ Press Award for News Podcast of the Year and a British Journalism Award for Features Journalism; Bed of Lies was Podcast of the Year at the Publisher Podcast Awards and won a Lovie Award for Best Crime and Justice Podcast. In 2022, Cara was awarded the Stern-Bryan Fellowship at the Washington Post. The Poison Line is her first book.