TORONTO, Oct 1 (Reuters) - Three former Canadian health officials and a pharmaceutical company were acquitted of criminal charges on Monday for their alleged roles in a blood scandal in which thousands of Canadians contracted HIV and hepatitis C from blood transfusions. Roger Perrault, a former director of the Canadian Red Cross, and the others had each been accused of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and commission of a common nuisance after thousands of hemophilia patients were given tainted blood products in the 1980s and 1990s. Tens of thousands of transfusion recipients in Canada contracted the HIV and the hepatitis C virus. In her ruling, Ontario Superior Court Justice Mary Lou Benotto said there was no conduct on the part of the accused that showed wanton and reckless disregard. "The allegations of criminal conduct on the part of these men and this corporation were not only unsupported by the evidence," they were disproved," she said in reading her ruling to a packed courthouse. Also found not guilty were former Canadian health officials Donald Wark Boucher and John Furesz, along with New Jersey company Armour Pharmaceutical, and its former vice president, Michael Rodell. Armour supplied the blood-clotting agent H.T. Factorate.
