A DUBLIN hospital has reversed a controversial decision to postpone a cancer drug trial it deferred because patient information leaflets contained wording at odds with its Catholic ethos.

THE Irish Medical Council has said the decision by St Vincent’s Hospital and the Mater Hospital to postpone life-saving drug trials because the drug involved required the use of contraceptives is not a matter for them because it is covered by each hospital’s contract.

Cancer sufferers at a top Dublin hospital were denied a potentially life-saving drug because abstinence was not considered as a means for female patients to avoid pregnancy, it emerged today.