Irish haemophiliacs who took legal action against five international drug firms have settled their case. The haemophiliacs took the case because they were infected with HIV from blood products. Details of the agreement are not being disclosed. It is understood, however, that the companies will pay out more than £5m to 59 litigants, including the relatives of haemophiliacs who died as a result of the virus. One litigant chose not accept the settlement.
In a separate development, although the State has still not compensated those who contracted the virus through clotting agents it is understood that deadlocked talks between the Irish Haemophilia Society and Department of Health officials could resume shortly.
The five drug companies against which the action was taken included Armour Pharmaceutical, Baxter Healthcare Corp, Bayer and Immuno. Some of the haemophiliacs involved have died since the proceedings started. The Lindsay Tribunal is trying to get access to HIV test results used in the litigation which, if made public, could show which products infected which people.
Statistics revealed at the Tribunal today show that 30 additional haemophiliacs were contaminated by blood products than previously known. Seamus Dooley of the Virus Reference Lab at UCD said that 252 haemophiliacs were affected with HIV and Hepatitis C, according to his study of documents. Up to this point, it had been thought that 221 haemophiliacs were infected, based on information from the Irish Haemophilia Society.
Mr Dooley said that 148 had Hepatitis C, 35 had HIV, 69 had been infected by both viruses. However, he said that his results were not definitive as regional labs could also have conducted results. Jerry Durcan, senior counsel for the Tribunal, said that his team was seeking access to results of HIV tests conducted on 65 haemophiliacs, who were ingrained in litigation against drug firms.
He said this after Mr Dooley informed the Tribunal that 500 samples at his lab had been sent to Collindale in England as part of the litigation. These samples might be able to link a haemophiliac to a particular product produced by one of the firms which is been litigated against.
