Six British people who face the risk of developing CJD - the human form of mad cow disease - because they were treated with contaminated growth hormone as children were awarded damages ranging between £3,500 and £300,000 for psychiatric illness by the High Court in Lincoln yesterday. The ruling opens up the possibility of at least 40 other claims being heard in the courts.
The six were among 2,000 children treated in the UK with human growth hormone from dead people between 1959 and 1985 because they suffered from stunted growth.
The solicitor acting for the six, Mr David Body, criticised the Department of Health for forcing his clients into a long legal battle and he called on the government to provide an assurance that it would learn lessons from the case.
As a result of treatment with the contaminated growth hormone, 27 people have gone on to develop CJD, but it is not known how many more could fall victim to the disease.
In 1996 Mr Justice Moreland ruled that the Department of Health was negligent in not acting on a warning given by Dr Alan Hickson, who in 1977 told the Medical Research Council about the risk of contracting CJD from growth hormone.
In court yesterday Mr Justice Moreland said the six had "rational fears" about submitting to a "ghastly lingering death from CJD".
The human growth programme ended in Britain in 1985 after several children in the US died of the disease after they were treated with the hormone.
Mr Justice Moreland said that for each of the six the risk of developing CJD remained with them "indefinitely . . . no amount of psychotherapy or counselling can obliterate the truth".
Meanwhile, the doctor who exposed the high death rate of babies and children at the centre of the Bristol heart surgery scandal said yesterday he believed the number of children who died could be up to 10 times higher than first suspected.
Twenty-nine babies and children died as a result of heart surgery carried out by three doctors at Bristol Royal Infirmary.
Dr Steve Boslin said yesterday there was in excess of 10 years of data to examine before the real figure would be known. He said he suspected the figure was "closer to 10 times" higher than the 29 deaths already recorded.