Guide Note: October 1, 2007: A judge in Canada has acquitted four doctors and a US drug company of criminal negligence in a tainted-blood scandal. Fast Facts:

1. Before Canada used newer blood screening practices, 20,000 people were infected with hepatitis C or HIV in the 1980s and 1990s
2. 3,000 people are known to have died as a result of these tainted blood products
3. The trial covered seven of the more than 1,000 people who were infected from an HIV-infected blood-clotting product made by US-based Armour Pharmaceutical
4. A second trial will deal with the bulk of the deaths and the thousands infected with hepatitis C