State investigation into vaccine trials under threat

THE State investigation into vaccine trials is under threat after a retired microbiologist successfully challenged an order to give evidence of his involvement.

Professor Patrick Meenan, 86, was involved in vaccine trials carried out on 58 children in five institutions run by the religious in the 1960s.

The former professor at University College Dublin won his Supreme Court challenge to a High Court order requiring him to give evidence to the Laffoy Commission. Professor Meenan claimed that he should not have to appear before the commission on grounds of his age and ill health.

Past residents of the homes who campaigned for the inquiry now fear a legal precedence has been set that could render it powerless to compel key witnesses to appear before it.

The commission, which has stressed that no allegation of wrongdoing has been made against Professor Meenan, was empowered by the Government in June 2001 to inquire into the conduct of the vaccine trials. The Supreme Court held the commission did not exercise fair procedures in dealing with claims made by the professor about his health and his involvement in the matters being inquired into.

The commission’s vaccine trials division is studying the judgment to see what alternative mechanism could be put in place that would allow Professor Meenan to give evidence.

Robert Kerr, solicitor for the vaccine trials division, said he intended issuing a public statement once he had completed his examination of the wider ramifications of the Supreme Court decision. Victor Boyhan, a Progressive Democrats councillor in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, was a resident of the Bird’s Nest Home in Dun Laoghaire, where some of the trials were conducted, and played a leading role in having the trials investigated by the Laffoy Commission.

Mr Boyhan said he feared that the Supreme Court ruling wouldresult in a number of other key witnesses refusing to appear before the commission on the same grounds as Professor Meenan, for which there was now legal precedence. “Because these vaccine trials took place so long ago, all these people would be in their seventies and eighties, so they could make the same legal argument,” he pointed out.

At the end of the day, someone had to be held culpable because the children involved in the trials were in the care of the State, he insisted.

“There is no dispute that the drug trials took place in the institutions. The question to be answered is who were involved and at what level.

“If one or two key witnesses are to go down the same route as Professor Meehan, it will result in the unravelling of the inquiry,” said Mr Boyhan.

He pointed out that it was the chairperson of the commission, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, who went to the High Court to argue that Professor Meenan should give evidence on the trials.

“It is quite obviously a blow to her as well as us,” he said.

Mr Boyhan added there was also a fear that there may never be full disclosure, a situation that would prevent civil actions being taken by those involved.