I thank the Chair for giving me the opportunity to raise this important issue. I wish to give the Minister for Health and Children an opportunity to correct his reply to Questions Nos. 175 to 179, inclusive, on 11 May. The Minister said in column 788 of the Official Report: "The company [Glaxo Wellcome Limited] added that the results of all tests, mandatory and otherwise, together with expert advice which the company had sought, indicate that no other batch gave rise to the same level of potential concern as batch 3741." This is incorrect for a number of reasons. At approximately the same time as batch 3741 was released and administered, another batch of greater potency, batch 3732, was also released. Batch 3732 was 16 times greater than the British standard at the time. Batch 3741 was 14.5 times greater.
During the Kenneth Best case, when questioned under cross-examination by Mr. Dermot Gleeson as to whether other batches of similar or greater potency were released, Mr. Peter Knight, manager of the Immunological Product Support Group of the Wellcome Foundation stated: "There may have been a half dozen, a dozen or 100 more.Goodness knows what I would have found if I had looked wider." Does this not give rise to the same level of potential concern as batch 3741?
From May 1968, 14 batches of vaccine which were not subjected to the mouse weight gain test were released. This was a standard test at the time in the United States and recommended by the World Health Organisation. They were administered from approximately January 1969 to January 1970. During this period there was an enormous increase in reactions to the vaccine, so much so that it induced a Dr. Griffith of the Department of Clinical Immunology at the Wellcome Research Laboratories to suggest that the vaccine should be withdrawn at the start of 1970. Does this not give rise to the same level of potential concern as batch 3741?
Eastern Health Board records for 1973 show that the official in charge of the administration of the vaccine in the region was inundated with reports of severe reactions among the children who had received it. The person concerned wrote to the Wellcome Foundation to express concern and questioned the advisability of continuing the Trivax vaccine. This official obviously believed that the reactions gave rise to the same level of potential concern as batch 3741.
An expert medical group, established in November 1977 with three eminent doctors, which reported in 1982 recommended the establishment of such a group on a permanent basis to assess damage caused by immunisation. They obviously believed that other batches gave rise to the same level of potential concern as batch 3741.
Department records and correspondence clearly show the extent of the adverse reactions to the three-in-one vaccine and that these were not attributed solely to one batch. If no other batch gave rise to the same level of potential concern, why have the records and correspondence in the Minister's possession not been made available to the parents of brain-damaged children? Why was the report of the expert group never published? Why has the Department failed to follow up the concerns of staff of the Wellcome Foundation regarding its quality control pro cedures and release of vaccine, the safety of which was questioned in the Best case?
The House has been misled through no fault of the Minister who has been misled by his officials and Glaxo Wellcome Limited which wants to cover up the extent to which children have been brain-damaged by the three-in-one vaccine. The Minister has an opportunity to clarify the record and not to encourage misleading statements which have been fed to him by the Wellcome Foundation. I will not drop this issue until the full truth is known.
