The Southern Health confirmed last night that pituitary glands taken from a number of patients who died at Cork University Hospital in the 1980s were given to a pharmaceutical company.
A spokeswoman for the Health Board told The Irish Times last night it had recently received new information from Pharmacia Ireland about the pituitary gland donations but that the hospital did not have the records to identify the patients involved.
She said the health board believed the number of patients involved to have been small. It was unable to say whether the patients were adults of children.
On Friday, Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin said it had contacted 20 parents to inform them that pituitary glands taken from their children, who died at the between 1981 and 1984, had been given to the pharmaceutical company to make human growth hormone.
The hospital said it was able to identify the children involved by matching the post-mortem numbers provided by Pharmacia with post-mortem files. Our Lady's Hospital said that when the controversy emerged four years ago that Pharmacia had told it at the time that it had no information.
On Friday evening, Beaumont Hospital said that Pharmacia Ireland had recently supplied it with information about a number of pituitary glands which had been donated to it "for research" by two former Dublin hospitals, the Richmond and Jervis Street, in the 1980s.
A Beaumont spokesman said on Friday "it had not been possible for the hospital to correlate the new information provided by the pharmaceutical company with the post-mortem books of the Richmond and Jervis Street which would make it possible to identify any of the individuals involved".
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