Machine filling bottles with blood clotting factor VIII imported to the UK from the USA in the 1980s to treat haemophilia and other bleeding disorders. Factor VIII, also known as anti-haemophilic factor (AHF), was extracted by combining and concentrating blood plasma from tens of thousands of donors. The practice of paying for blood donations in the USA meant that donated blood often came from groups that were at high risk of infection with HIV or Hepatitis C, viruses that were not screened for at the time. The pooling of donations meant that just one infected donor could infect an entire batch of product that would be used for many patients. Although these risks were known at the time they were ignored by the UK government and were not communicated to patients. This resulted in an estimated 3,650 people with haemophilia receiving infected blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. Approximately 1,250 were infected with HIV and at least a further 2,400 with Hepatitis C, leading to around 3,000 deaths as of 2024. Photographed at the The Blood Products Laboratory, Elstree, UK.