Victims of UK tainted blood scandal to get government payout

LONDON (AP) — The British government says thousands of people who contracted HIV or hepatitis from transfusions of tainted blood in the 1970s and 1980s will receive 100,000 pounds, about $120,000, in compensation. Thousands of hemophiliacs and other hospital patients in Britain were infected with HIV or Hepatitis C through tainted blood products, largely imported from the United States. Some 2,400 people have died as a result of the scandal. The payments announced Wednesday will be made by October to survivors and bereaved partners of the dead. Survivors welcomed the compensation after years of campaigning. But they say it should be expanded to include more people whose lives were blighted, including parents and children of the dead.