Vaccine trial files will not be transferred to HSE

FILES relating to controversial vaccine trials carried out on children at a Mother and Baby Home run by the Sacred Heart Convent in Bessboro in Cork will not be transferred to the HSE.

In a letter seen by the Irish Examiner to one of the victims of the trials, Maureen Downey Hickey, who was later adopted to the US, the HSE confirmed that while it is to receive 15,000 adoption files from Bessboro, it “has been advised that immunisation records will continue to be the responsibility of the order”.

The Irish Examiner reported last week that as the former adoption agency has not applied for accreditation, and is not compelled to do so under the Adoption Act, its adoption files will remain the private property of the order and cannot be inspected by the Adoption Authority.