Iraqi man who lost five sons to AIDS in weary fight for justice

First one of his sons died, then another and another. By 1996, Khalid al-Jabor had lost five children to AIDS, all victims of contaminated blood allegedly exported to Iraq by a French firm now owned by drug giant Sanofi.
      
Decades later, the 58-year-old is still desperately trying to get justice for his shattered family and more than 270 Iraqi families which suffered similar tragedies in the 1980s and 1990s -- but to no avail.
      
"I believe that human rights, freedom and democracy are imaginary principles, they don't really exist," the tall, dapper, retired town hall employee said bitterly on a trip to Paris, in another attempt to seek compensation.
      
The story emerged in the early 1980s, when AIDS had just been discovered and the mere mention of the deadly epidemic sent shivers down global leaders' spines.
      
At the time, five of Jabor's sons were haemophiliacs, a disorder in which a patient's blood does not clot properly, forcing them to have regular transfusions to replace the missing clotting protein.
      
All were given transfusions in Baghdad using blood products that authorities say they bought from the Merieux Institute, which became part of Sanofi in 2004 when the drug giant acquired Aventis.
                      
With the realisation as early as 1982 that many haemophiliacs were catching the HIV virus that causes AIDS, concerns emerged worldwide about the safety of blood supplies and scientists suspected non-heated products could be dangerous.
      
But Alain Bernal, spokesman for Sanofi Pasteur -- the group's vaccine division that used to be Merieux -- said there were concerns that heating blood would damage the factor VIII protein inside that helps clotting and is life...