The former director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre was "startled" to learn in the summer of 1986 that the Blood Transfusion Service Board was making a clotting agent from plasma donations which had not been tested for HIV, the tribunal heard.
Prof Ian Temperley sought an urgent meeting with the BTSB. He understood all blood plasma used to make the factor 9 clotting agent had been screened for HIV for the previous five months, said Mr Brian McGovern SC, for Prof Temperley.
Mr McGovern, in his cross-examination of Dr Terry Walsh, a consultant haematologist at the BTSB, who met Prof Temperley when the meeting was sought, said his client received the information which startled him in June 1986.
Dr Walsh said the meeting was to discuss the fact that a number of haemophilia B patients had tested HIV-positive. Prof Temperley had written to him in April informing him of his concern.
The screening of donor plasma was also discussed, including whether product which had been heat-treated but not made from screened plasma could be used. He said it took Prof Temperley until October 1986 to decide whether he would use clotting agent which was heat-treated but not made from plasma tested for HIV. He advised the board in October that it could not.
Mr McGovern said Prof Temp erley would say he had no recollection of ever saying he would use concentrates made from unscreened donations. He claimed Dr Walsh's memo of the meeting which claimed he was prepared to use them was a misinterpretation of Prof Temperley's views.
Mr McGovern said Prof Temperley was under the impression that all blood products made by the BTSB since January 1986 were manufactured from plasma tested for HIV. He referred to a recall notice sent to hospitals by the BTSB in January 1986 which stated: "All blood donations collected since mid-October 1985 have been tested for antibodies to HTLV III (HIV). It is possible that some products prepared prior to that time with a prolonged shelf-life may still be in circulation. The BTSB will now replace such unused products with equivalent material prepared since HTLV III antibody screening was introduced."
He said Prof Temperley was right, therefore, to assume that only products made from raw material which was screened were being issued by the BTSB.