The Lindsay Tribunal has heard more evidence about why the Blood Transfusion Service imported a blood product despite major concerns about hepatitis. A senior blood bank official told the Lindsay Tribunal today that his Board was worried but still agreed to indemnify the company which made it.
The Lindsay Tribunal has already heard from Dr Emer Lawlor, the expert witness put forward by Pelican House, about this matter. She said that a drug company called Armour which was being used by Pelican House announced in 1988 that it was changing the way it made blood products.
The technique would make haemophiliac clotting agents safe from hepatitis and so Armour alerted the BTS that they were discontinuing the old method. The Tribunal heard however how price would double and so Pelican House asked that they continue with the old method till the end of the year. Armour only agreed when the Irish Blood Bank signed an indemnity.
Today's witness, Ted Keyes, was the Chief Executive Officer at the time and was at the Board meetings where the decisions were taken. Mr Keyes said that the Board was worried that the product might infect people with non-a non-b hepatitis, which would later be known as Hepatitis C. He said he was particularly concerned at the indemnity as the Board would be responsible for a product it had no control over. However despite these concerns, the indemnity was signed and the product was used till the end of the year.
Mr Keyes suggested that the ultimate responsibility lay with Professor Ian Temperley who was on the Board and Director of the National Haemophilia Centre. Mr Keyes said that Professor Temperley specifically requested that the product be used.
The Tribunal has heard that there is no evidence that this product did infect any person with Hepatitis following the signing of the indemnity. However a Pelican House clotting agent made from a by-product of the Armour process infected two children from the same family with Hepatitis C.
