The Blood Transfusion Service Board stopped objecting to the importation of blood products for haemophiliacs after a supplier offered it a profit-making deal to distribute the products in the Republic, the tribunal heard yesterday.
The tribunal was told that the Department of Health sought the BTSB's views on the licensing of a number of products in the early 1970s. The board objected to their importation on the basis they would contravene Council of Europe recommendations. The recommendations said products could be prepared by commercial companies if the blood came from voluntary donors and the products were distributed without profit.
In March 1973, Travenol applied to the Department of Health for a licence to import Hemofil and again the BTSB objected, saying it was manufactured from the plasma of paid donors. However, the Department granted the licence nine months later.
Mr John Trainor SC, counsel for the Irish Haemophilia Society, cross-examining the BTSB's deputy medical director, Dr Emer Lawlor, produced a Department of Health inter-departmental memo from early 1974 which noted that Dr Jack O'Riordan, the BTSB's then director, had expressed concern about the licence given to Travenol. He said Travenol "were trying to corner the market" which was worth £50,000 annually and that its prices could double.
He also objected to the fact that blood donations the product was made from came from "Skid Row types in the US and native populations in the Caribbean".
"Surely that's intended to mean down-and-out persons giving blood for money for drink or food . . . persons in dire straits at the very bottom of society," Mr Trainor said. Dr Lawlor agreed.
In April 1974, a letter was sent "out of the blue", as counsel put it, by Travenol to Dr O'Riordan suggesting that the BTSB might act as a distributor of Hemofil. "In exchange for this service we would offer a service fee amounting to 10 per cent of the selling price of Hemofil. The selling price would be 12 pence per unit," it said. It added it would invoice the BTSB, which in turn could invoice the hospitals it supplied and obtain a mark-up on the purchase price.
Counsel asked Dr Lawlor if she could say whether the board made a three pence mark-up on each unit of the product when it sold it on to the hospitals. Dr Lawlor said she didn't know. She added that the BTSB's financial records and letters agreeing price for the period would have been kept only for a number of years. Dr Lawlor said the product was eventually brought in and everyone was aware of the risks; however the benefits were assessed as outweighing the risks. She said the BTSB was underfunded and the money it would make after selling the imported product to the hospitals could be used to develop its own products.
The tribunal also heard that in February 1975 the BTSB applied to the Department for a wholesale licence for the product and it was subsequently granted.
Mr Trainor asked why the BTSB got involved in distributing a product it was concerned about. He suggested it decided to handle the products, which were coming in anyway, and make a profit from them "without regard to the risks" involved.
Dr Lawlor did not accept that it was purely a profit-making exercise. She said the BTSB had an obligation to make available blood products.
She added it was reluctant to do it but Dr O'Riordan was also a founder member of the IHS and would have been aware of what people wanted.