The Blood Transfusion Service Board was worried about the safety of products it was supplying to haemophiliacs in the late 1980s but it continued to supply them, the tribunal was told.
The worries were sparked in January 1988 when the drug company making them for the BTSB, which in turn would make a profit from their distribution, told the board it wished to be indemnified against the consequences of any infection which might arise from their use.
The Armour Pharmaceutical company sought the indemnity after a number of haemophiliacs in Canada using its products tested HIV positive. The company said it did not want to continue supplying the BTSB with heat-treated factor 8 after 1988 as it was going to change to a newer and safer viral inactivation technique.
The former chief executive officer of the blood bank, Mr Ted Keyes, said yesterday this was worrying and posed problems. It was discussed with Prof Ian Temperley, former director of the National Haemophilia Treatment Centre, and he indicated he would be happy to use Armour products for a certain length of time. Ultimately, the arrangement with Armour continued to the end of 1989, he said.
Mr John Finlay SC, for the tribunal, asked Mr Keyes if the letter presented problems for him. "It certainly did. It indicated our plans for self-sufficiency were at risk," he said.
"The document requested by them did cause me problems. An indemnity has all sorts of implications but we did at some stage talk to our legal people who managed to get it watered down and in that context we continued on to the end of 1989," he added.
"An indemnity would worry me anyway because it has implications for the board itself in that the board would be expected to carry responsibility if something went wrong with somebody else over which we had no control." Counsel put it to him that Armour must have been distinctly worried about its products if it was seeking an indemnity. "I would have taken that implication from it," Mr Keyes said.
Mr Finlay asked if this had also caused him worry. "We were. We discussed it but ultimately Prof Temperley said he wanted product for his patients. He would use this and he specifically asked that I would make an arrangement to the end of 1989, which we did," he said.
He added that the worry for him was not HIV as the heat-treatment used on products shipped to Pelican House differed from that used in Canada, but he was worried about the transmission of non-A, non-B hepatitis, which later became known as hepatitis C.
Mr Keyes sent the Armour letter which sought indemnity to the Department of Health and discussions took place with the Department and at board level. A board meeting of the BTSB in April 1988 was presented with the revised indemnity signed on behalf of Armour, and it was approved.