TAIPEI: A group of Taiwanese HIV patients is appealing a US court decision barring the group from suing pharmaceutical giant Bayer over claims that the company is responsible for their plight, the group's lawyer said yesterday. The patients, who are hemophiliacs, say they contracted the deadly virus from blood products sold in the 1980s by US-headquartered Cutter, owned by Bayer, according to Michael Baum, their lead attorney.

The Illinois Federal Court recently ruled that the Taiwan cases were barred by the statute of limitations, although the Taiwanese patients had won a motion to proceed in California in January.

"We have filed notices of appeal," said Baum, of Los Angeles-based law firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei and Goldman, which has represented 41 Taiwanese hemophiliacs and their relatives since 2003.

At the center of the dispute is a blood product called Koate, used in the early 1980s to make the blood of the hemophilia patients clot in the event of injury.

Koate was made by US-headquartered Cutter, which was bought by Bayer in the 1970s.

Taiwan health authorities banned the product in 1985 after it was found that the product had not been heat-treated and could be tainted with HIV.

But by that time, thousands of people had been infected worldwide, among them at least 53 patients in Taiwan, according to Taiwan's Department of Health.

"I was three years old when I contracted HIV," said one of the patients, now 27. "My mom told me I took the drug only three times."

Altogether 36 out of the original 53 local patients have died, according to the patient.

Bayer Taiwan declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

AFP

(HK Edition 10/21/2009 page2)