Hospitals gave us 2,500 glands, admits drug firm

THE organ retention controversy continued last night after the second company named as using pituitary glands from dead children for drug manufacturing said it was supplied by a large number of Irish hospitals.

Up to yesterday just one hospital admitted supplying Danish company Novo Nordisk with glands taken from deceased patients but the firm said last night it had more than 30 suppliers.

It is understood to have received 2,500 glands taken from deceased Irish patients without their families' consent over a 10-year period in the 1970s and 1980 and to have paid the hospitals for the service.

Parents for Justice last night called on the company to release the names of the hospitals involved and the specifics of the payments made to them.

Pharmacia Ireland, the first company to be linked to the controversy, has refused to put a figure on the number of hospitals that supplied its predecessor, Kabi Vitrum, or say how many glands it received.

More than a dozen hospitals have admitted in recent days that they supplied Kabi Vitrum but it is not known if the list is exhaustive.

A spokesman for Pharmacia said last night the company did not intend to divulge the names of hospitals that supplied it or to go into further details about the numbers of glands involved.

"We have made our submissions to the Dunne Inquiry and out of respect for the workings of that forum, we don't intend to say anything more by way of public statement," he said.

Two more health boards yesterday issued statements confirming that hospitals under their control were involved in supplying glands which were used to make human growth hormone prior to 1985.

The North Eastern Health Board said pituitary glands were supplied by Louth County Hospital, Dundalk, and Our Lady's Hospital, Navan, but said records were not detailed enough to identify the individual patients involved.

A third hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, also removed pituitary glands from patients but these were not passed on to drug firms.

The South Eastern Health Board, meanwhile, said Ardkeen Hospital in Waterford had forwarded around 50 glands to a pharmaceutical company between the years 1978 and 1984 but it too has been unable to identify the individuals involved.

The supply of pituitary glands to drugs companies for the commercial manufacture of medicines was first revealed four years ago but the scale of the practice was unknown.

The current controversy erupted last week when Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, wrote to 20 families to tell them it could now confirm that their dead children's glands were provided to Pharmacia Ireland.