Armour Rejects Media Accusations On Factorate

Armour Pharmaceutical Co of the USA is accused in a prematurely-leaked report in the Philadelphia Inquirer of keeping its blood-clotting agent Factorate on the market in 1985, despite warnings that its heat-treatment process was not effective in killing the human immunodeficiency virus. The report, and other Armour documents held under seal in federal and Philadelphia courts, were due to be released by lawyers acting for a Canadian Board of inquiry.

However, Armour said in a statement that the Philadelphia article was "inaccurate and misleading," and that its heat-treatment process at the time was "within the range of industry practices."

Armour, a subsidiary of the Franco-American drugs group Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, said in a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it was a defendant in 321 pending lawsuits brought by HIV-infected hemophiliacs or their survivors. Earlier this month, the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the hemophiliacs to have their cases against Armour and other producers of blood products combined into a class action.