Drugs company paid hospitals for body parts

THE drugs company that made medication from brain tissue taken from dead infants without their parents’ knowledge confirmed last night it had paid hospitals for supplying the body parts.

Pharmacia Ireland said its predecessor, Kabi Vitrum Ltd, had provided reimbursement to pathologists and hospitals for the work involved in removing the pituitary glands needed for making a growth hormone, but did not say how much money was paid.

In a statement confirming that the arrangement was in place between 1977 and 1985, the company said: “the sum was intended solely to defray any additional costs required to remove and store the pituitary glands”.

The company would not say how many hospitals or pathologists were on its payroll or how many pituitary glands it had received from children during this eight-year period.

It said it had co-operated fully with the Dunne Organ Retention Inquiry and would continue to do so, although it added it was difficult to locate the relevant records given that they dated back more than 20 years and that the company had been through several corporate mergers. It is now part of the Pfizer corporation.

The company’s statement followed criticisms by campaign group Parents for Justice after families received shock letters from Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, telling them that Pharmacia had supplied new information which confirmed their children’s glands had been supplied in this way.

Parents for Justice chairwoman Fionnuala O’Reilly accused Health Minister Micheál Martin of “insensitivity” and “incompetence”. The minister’s office would not be drawn on the criticisms last night.