Kelly Duda - ProfilesArchive

About Me

Go to: factor8movie.com.
SYNOPSIS
For more than two decades, the Arkansas Prison system sold blood plasma from inmates infected with viral hepatitis & AIDS. Thousands of unwitting victims who transfused a medication called Factor 8 made from this blood died as a result.
Follow along as award-winning filmmaker Kelly Duda uncovers a tragedy many consider a crime. Through exclusive interviews & key documents as well as never-before-seen footage, he builds a formidable case that cries out to be heard. FACTOR 8 takes the viewer into the underbelly of the good ole boy South, and like a Grisham novel, delivers disturbing subplots, amazing coincidences & a possible conspiracy. Charges of cronyism & cover-up reach all the way to the administration of then-Gov. Bill Clinton.
Add death threats, burglary & a murder to the story & a suspected campaign of fear & intimidation surfaces. Even now, families are grieving. People are still dying, and nobody has ever been held accountable. FACTOR 8 is one citizen's attempt to set that right.
QUOTES
"In the early days of AIDS, we at the CDC were surprised that the hemophiliac community was infected so rapidly. This shocking documentary tells why."
-- Dr. Donald Francis, Former head of AIDS Laboratory at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
"FACTOR 8 is about to take its place in history as one of the most tragic pharmaceutical drug stories since Thalidomide. Kelly Duda's dedication to the truth is an inspiration--this expose wears his heart on its sleeve, refusing to let the victims die in vain."
-- Natalie McMenemy, American Film Institute
"Knocked my socks off. FACTOR 8 makes me wish I was in the business of producing documentaries. Where's the criminal investigation?"
-- Steve McEveety, Exec. Producer of BRAVEHEART (Academy Award -- Best Picture), Producer of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
"The political pressure to keep this film SILENT is very strong. It makes you wonder what else there is they haven't told us."
-- Dr. C.D. Mazoff, PhD, HCV Advocate
"Kelly Duda is a journalist in the truest sense -- standing up for society's forgotten, despite all odds and at great personal sacrifice. FACTOR 8 is an inspiring triumph over greed and corruption."
-- Jim Gilliam, Producer of IRAQ FOR SALE, WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price
"This is a film of huge importance for the haemophilia community in Britain and across the world. It highlights yet again the extreme urgency of the call for an independent public inquiry into the causes of the worst ever treatment disaster in the history of the National Health Service."
-- Lord Morris of Manchester, United Kingdom
"Kelly Duda's film screams to be known about. The blatant abuse of power, the criminal subjugation of prison inmates, and the complete absence of government oversight and accountability make for a compelling, must-see story."
-- William Gazecki, Producer/Director of WACO: The Rules of Engagement (Academy Award nominee)
"FACTOR 8 investigates a chilling trail of tainted blood that reached as far away as Japan. It is a relentless pursuit of the truth by a remarkable documentarian."
-- Keiko Ibi, Producer/Director of THE PERSONALS: Improvisation on Romance in the Golden Years (Academy Award Best Documentary Short)
"If young documentarians would choose subjects as important as that of Kelly Duda's FACTOR 8, we might be well on the way to making the world a better place."
-- Penelope Spheeris, Director of THE CROOKED E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron, The Decline of Western Civilization trilogy
"At last, Kelly Duda's stunning film, FACTOR 8, gives the story of the tainted blood tragedy its due. Through interviews with inmates, prison health officials, and Canadians who contracted diseases from Arkansas blood, Duda explores the greed and politics that underscored this tragedy."
-- Mara Leveritt, Author of DEVILS KNOT: The True Story of the West Memphis Three
"Duda's presence throughout the film reminds the viewer that he is just a citizen in his home state asking a few questions. But the roadblocks he hits along the way are truly disturbing. FACTOR 8 is an impressive work of investigative reporting, an important film and an insane example of what the media chooses to illuminate or ignore."
-- Sara Jo Marks, International Documentary
"FACTOR 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal is a relevant and demoralizing work ... and stands as a chilling indictment of government indifference to the lives of foreigners and inmates."
-- Philip Martin, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
"FACTOR 8 is a terrifying lesson on the lengths the powerful will go to in order to make a buck."
-- David Koon, Arkansas Times
"Kelly Duda's film is a mind-numbing expose' of man's inhumanity toward man, motivated by political and financial greed. Everyone everywhere should see it and be outraged."
-- Roger Endell, Former Director of the Arkansas Department of Correction (Forced out of Arkansas after serving less than a year as director because he wanted to reform the system.)
"FACTOR 8 is a serious public service piece ... Very powerful."
-- Alexandra Pelosi, Producer/Director of JOURNEYS WITH GEORGE, Diary of a Political Tourist. (Daughter of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi)
"Duda is as tough on the pharmaceutical companies and the health regulators as he is on any of the political figures or public officials involved."
-- The American Spectator
"FACTOR 8 is here to herd the pigs responsible for this mess out into the light. It's an ugly story, but it's a story that everyone should hear."
-- Film Threat
"FACTOR 8 is hard-headed journalism practiced by a filmmaker who sometimes seems like a pit bull with a bureaucratic bone."
-- John Anderson, Variety
"Duda is a bit of a maverick. Everything he does is infused with a sense of urgency and speed but juxtaposed by a slightly unnerving smirk."
-- New Statesman (UK)

"Brubaker," starring Robert Redford, based on the real life story of Warden Thomas Murton who tried to reform the Arkansas prison system.
"Standing against corruption is often a solitary crusade, at least in the beginning. Mr. Duda has undertaken that crusade in FACTOR 8. His is a film that politicians, officials and--above all--the citizens should see. And, having seen, should act."
-- Mark D. Murton, son of Thomas Murton, the former warden of the Arkansas prison farms, who co-authored ACCOMPLICES TO THE CRIME & inspired the Robert Redford movie BRUBAKER.
Links to Radio interviews with Duda about the Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal:
BBC Radio (UK)
McGill University (Canada)
NPR (Arkansas)
"When I Get Out of Cummins" By Johnny Cash
When I get out of Cummins I'm going to Little Rock I'm gonna walk right up those Capitol steps I ain't even gonna knock And there are some things I'm goin' to say Did you say you've seen the figures on the profits we made all those years I'd say look here, don't you think you could give us back a little of it?

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

"A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves"â€“-Edward R. Murrow
"Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something." --Henry David Thoreau
"The time is always right to do what is right."--Martin Luther King, Jr.
"You can kill the revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution."--Fred Hampton
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."â€”George Orwell
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."--Arthur Schopenhauer
"Anger is an energy."--John Lydon
"Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence."-- Robert Kennedy
"What I must do is all that concerns me, not what people think. ... It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man (or woman) is he (or she :) who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

My Blog

UK Inquiry Recommends Compensation to Tainted Blood Victims

The LORD ARCHER INQUIRY on contaminated blood, which I testified in front of at Westminster's about my documentary FACTOR 8: THE ARKANSAS PRISON BLOOD SCANDAL, US blood imports, and Arkansas prison p...
Posted by on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:23:00 GMT

After all these years, after all we have suffered, we want an apology'

After all these years, after all we have suffered, we want an apology'http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/23/n hs-contaminated-blood-transfusionsFour people speak out about contaminated NHS...
Posted by on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:11:00 GMT

'Doctors knew blood was infected'

'Doctors knew blood was infected'http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7905559.stmBBC radio clip of Collette Wintle, a Hep-C victim of U.S. prison blood (Arkansas).Haemophiliac Collette Wintle, 50, who h...
Posted by on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:07:00 GMT

UK: first evidence of hemophiliac with mad cow

BAD NEWS: It appears that vCJD, the human form of Mad Cow Disease has been discovered in a British Hemophiliac indicating that the disease may be transmitted through blood! This is what we were afra...
Posted by on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:47:00 GMT

Scot hits out over betrayed HIV victims

Scot hits out over 'betrayed' HIV victimsBy Tristan Stewart-RobertsonSeptember 25, 2008Evening Times (Scotland) ONE of the last surviving Scots to be infected with HIV during the tainted blood scanda...
Posted by on Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:51:00 GMT

Cabinet to look again at contaminated transfusions

Cabinet to look again at contaminated transfusionsFortrose hepatitis C sufferer wins minister's pledgeBy Eilidh DaviesAberdeen Press and Journal, Scotland, UKPublished: 09/04/2008A Westminster MP yest...
Posted by on Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:07:00 GMT

Victims of Britains tainted blood scandal speak

NOTE: I testified at this inquiry in London in Parliament; the report is due any day now. It will be interesting to see what it concludes and recommends. Then there's the upcoming Scottish Inquiry ...
Posted by on Thu, 21 Aug 2008 06:01:00 GMT

UK Blood victim backs campaign

Blood Victim Backs CampaignBradford Telegraph & Argus (UK)Monday 26th May 2008By Marc MeneaudA Bradford man who won a £20,000 payout after contracting hepatitis C from contaminated blood is backing a...
Posted by on Tue, 27 May 2008 08:41:00 GMT

Scottish National Party Announces Tainted Blood Inquiry

Scottish National Party Announces Tainted Blood InquiryThe SNP has fulfilled its election pledge to hold a public inquiry into how people were infected with hepatitis C and HIV through contaminated bl...
Posted by on Sat, 03 May 2008 23:19:00 GMT

Hepatitis-C patients successfully claim benefits in blood product scandal

21 hepatitis-C patients successfully claim benefits in blood product scandalMainichi Daily NewsJapanFebruary 29, 2008Supporters of the plaintiffs show off banners in front of the Tokyo High Court, say...
Posted by on Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:31:00 GMT