The deputy medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service told the Lindsay tribunal yesterday that a former colleague gave her erroneous information about the agency's role in infecting haemophiliacs.
Dr Emer Lawlor said that Dr Terry Walsh, former chief medical consultant, suggested that BTSB-made Factor 9 had probably not caused the infection of seven haemophilia B patients with HIV when in fact it had.
Dr Lawlor said she believed Dr Walsh gave her the erroneous information around the time of the litigation taken by haemophiliacs against the board in 1991. She said she only found out the truth in the summer of 1996 when she began a review of documentation.
Dr Walsh has already told the tribunal he was aware in mid1996 that BTSB Factor 9 was likely to have infected the seven haemophiliacs.
This knowledge was shared by the former chief executive officer, Mr Ted Keyes, who has said he was certain the Government-nominated members of the BTSB's board were also aware of the infections.
A number of BTSB employees have told the tribunal they were unaware, however, and the blood bank only admitted that one of its products was responsible for infecting haemophiliacs at the opening of this inquiry.
Dr Lawlor conceded yesterday that there may have been "an element of denial" about the Factor 9 problem.
She was commenting on a minute of a BTSB medical advisory committee meeting in January 1997. This recorded its chairman, Prof Temperley, expressing his desire "to place on record that he suspected an outbreak of HIV in haemophiliacs in 1986 was related to blood products received from the BTSB".
The same minute records Prof Temperley's apparent disquiet that the committee, which comprised members from outside the board including Department of Health officials, had not been informed of a look-back initiated by the BTSB the previous September. The look-back involved an attempt to trace more than 30 potentially infectious HIV donations.
Dr Lawlor said it was felt the look-back needed to be done "quickly and quietly" and "there were concerns about leaks at that stage". The Kavanagh report on the blood bank issued in 1995 had been leaked to the press, she said, "and it had a huge detrimental effect on our blood supply, and patients could have died.".
