ANGER has been expressed by a woman infected with hepatitis C over a request from the Irish Medicines Board to withdraw her High Court action against it. A letter from solicitors for the board, formerly the National Drugs Advisory Board, told Mrs Mary Quinlan that it would waive all legal costs to date if the withdrew her action.
"I am very angry about this letter," Mrs Quinlan said yesterday. "It is the same thing again as happened in the Brigid McCole case. It was not very nice to come home from treatment in hospital and have this waiting for me.
Mrs Quinlan, a mother of eight, from Co Carlow, was infected with antiD immunoglobulin in the 1970s and possibly again in the early 1990s. She has serious damage to her liver. She began her High Court action 18 months ago.
She is suing the Blood Transfusion Services Board, the Minister for Health, Ireland and the Attorney General and the Irish Medicines Board (IMB) for ordinary and aggravated damages.
She said the letter had asked her to consider whether any useful purpose would be served by keeping the IMB as a defendant in the proceedings. "They said the report of the hepatitis C tribunal made it clear that the contamination of anti D with hepatitis C was not due to any negligence or lack of care on their part."
The letter referred to a section of the report which detailed the role of the then National Drugs Advisory Board. The letter said that no useful purpose would be served by keeping the board as a defendant. If Mrs Quinlan did it would "have no alternative but to dispute liability and this will obviously add greatly to the cost of proceedings.
But Mrs Quinlan believes the IMB does have a case to answer. "There is no point in the Irish Medicines Board getting off so lightly ... I do not want to withdraw the board as a defendant. But I suppose if it came to losing my house or something like that I would have to reconsider the situation."
An IMB spokesman declined to comment. It is believed that its offer to pay costs to date was made as a "gesture of goodwill" rather than in any threatening manner and that the board believes Mrs Quinlan would not win a case for aggravated damages against it and would be left with the costs.
Mrs Quinlan said that she felt the terms of reference of the hepatitis C tribunal of inquiry were too narrow. "It was never going to give us a safe blood supply unless every angle was examined."
She receives medical treatment in London, but believes that she is entitled to private medical care in Ireland.
Mrs Quinlan's viral load, which measures the amount of virus in her blood, is very high and her treatment has only been moderately successful. "I will have to stay on it for life. If I come off it the virus will rapidly progress and I could be dead within three years.