Cecily Cunningham, Told not to get "emotionally involved" with haemophiliacs
A new witness at the Lindsay Tribunal this morning spoke of her sadness at the infection of haemophiliacs from blood products. Cecily Cunningham, former Principal Biochemist at Pelican House, said in a voice choked with emotion that she was "deeply troubled and profoundly saddened" at what she called the "tragedy". Ms Cunningham had responsibility in the late 1970s and 1980s for making the Factor Nine clotting agent from Irish blood which is used by a minority of haemophiliacs. She said that she only found out that Irish-made Factor Nine infected haemophiliacs with HIV from the Tribunal this year.
The Tribunal has already heard that Irish-made Factor Nine clotting agent infected seven haemophiliacs with HIV. Five of them have died. Ms Cunningham told the Tribunal that she visited an AGM of the Irish Haemophilia Society in 1984 and relayed "a lot of concerns" to senior blood bank official, Sean Hanratty. However she said that she was told not to get "emotionally involved" with the haemophiliacs.
She told the Tribunal that she was very happy working in Pelican House in the 1970s but this deteriorated in the 1980s when she had "a very hard time". The Tribunal heard more about the dilemma in 1985 as to whether or not Factor Nine should be heat treated to eliminate HIV. Ms Cunningham said that while there had been limited tests, which indicated that there was not a health problem, Pelican House was guided by England where there were still concerns. She said there was also what she called a "fervent hope" that the old manufacturing process would clear out viruses like HIV. Ms Cunningham said that they had not had any problem since 1972. However, as the Tribunal now knows, that process did not work.
Ms Cunningham said that she was never informed that treating doctors had requested heat treated blood products from the blood bank as far back as December 1984. She told the Tribunal that she was instructed to issue non-heat treated clotting agents to hospitals until January 1986.
