The Blood Transfusion Service has rejected an assertion that its decision to import commercial blood products in the 1970s was based on solely on profit considerations. Deputy Medical Director, Dr Emer Lawlor, claimed the Board was aware of the risk of hepatitis from new US clotting agents, but the benefits to haemophiliacs outweighed that consideration. She maintained that both treating doctors and users were also aware of the heightened dangers of hepatitis infection, but still wanted it because it significantly improved quality of life.
Dr Lawlor was speaking on the first day of her cross-examination at the Lindsay Tribunal by John Trainor, Senior Counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society. Mr Trainor had suggested that the absence of any discussion of the question of risk by the Board of the BTS led to the conclusion that this was a profit operation undertaken to subvert other activities. Dr Lawlor rejected Mr Trainor’s suggestion that the 'irresistible conclusion' was that the decision was taken without any regard to the risk.
Earlier, the Tribunal heard how the Blood Transfusion Service opposed the importation of commercial blood product but later acted as the company's wholesaler and distributor for profit.
Prior to 1974, haemophiliacs used a clotting agent called cyroprecipitate to help stop bleeds but it took a long time to get into the system. A concentrated blood clotting agent, made by the company Travenol Laboratories in 1972, significantly helped haemophiliacs by allowing home treatment and reducing the time in hospital. However, Mr Trainor said that an inter-departmental memo showed how Jack O'Riordan, then BTS National Director, objected to it being given a licence. The February 1974 memo recorded Dr O'Riordan being particularly concerned for the safety of the product as it was made from the blood of what he termed 'skid-row types' in the US who were paid for donating.
However the product was given a licence by the Government and later that year, Dr O'Riordan was in communication with Travenol about the BTS becoming wholesaler and distributor. A letter of April 1974 recorded how Travenol would give the BTS 10% back on all of the product it sold and the BTS could also make a mark-up to the units it sold to the hospital.
Dr Lawlor said there was no more documentation on the details of the arrangement as financial records were only held for six years before being destroyed. Dr Lawlor was pressed by Mr Trainor as to why the BTS would agree to get involved in the distribution of a product which it was concerned about and simply just focus on its own. She said that it was part of the BTS charter to distribute blood products.
