RTÉ News has linked a major pharmaceutical firm with an Irish wholesale company, one of whose directors allegedly worked at Pelican House. The matter is due to be examined by the Lindsay Tribunal, which is inquiring into the infection of haemophiliacs from contaminated blood products, when it resumes next month.
74 haemophiliacs have died as a result of being infected with contaminated blood products mainly in the late 1970s and 1980s. The Tribunal is inquiring into how and why this happened. The focus up to last month’s adjournment was on the actions of the employees and agents of the Blood Transfusion Service. During the cross-examination of Doctor Emer Lawlor, the Pelican House expert witness but an employee who wasn't there at the time, questions of a possible conflict of interest were raised.
John Trainor, Senior Counsel for the Haemophilia Society, claimed that the former Chief Technical Officer, Sean Hanratty, was also a director of a commercial company called ACCU Science which was selling products to Pelican House in the 1980s. RTÉ News has now established that ACCU Science acted as a wholesaler for one of the main pharmaceutical firms used by Pelican House called 'Cutter' which is now part of the $29 bn Bayer Group. A Bayer spokesman said that they had a commercial relationship with ACCU Science between 1984 and 1990, but there was no direct contact between officers of the two companies.
The Tribunal had already heard that Mr Hanratty was the person with responsibility for documentation when twenty years of dispatch records were destroyed in 1993. The Irish Haemophilia Society had claimed that these records were crucial to haemophiliacs attempting to sue the pharmaceutical firms. This matter and any possible conflict of interest is due to come before the Tribunal when it resumes on September 12th. The Tribunal itself will also be expected to clarify whether or not it will travel to the United States to investigate the pharmaceutical firms which supplied clotting agents for haemophiliacs. A considerable amount of data relating to this issue already exists following civil cases there, however, the Lindsay Tribunal has not yet stated whether it will seek a court order to gain access to it.
