Tag Archives: Vaccine Trials

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Children’s toys and flowers at the ‘Little Angels’ memorial plot in the grounds of Bessborough House in Blackrock, Cork in 2014

You may recall a post from 2014 which detailed a timeline of the known medical trials conducted on children in Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland, the response of successive health ministers and the contemporaneous expansion in Ireland of the medical companies involved in those trials.

Further to this…

In today’s Irish Examiner, Conall Ó Fátharta reports:

The files of vaccine trial victims in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home were altered in 2002 — just weeks after the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse sought discovery of records from the order running the home.

Material obtained by the Irish Examiner under Freedom of Information shows that changes were made to the records of mothers and children used in the 1960/61 4-in-1 vaccine trials.

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) had sought discovery of the records from the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary on July 22, 2002. An affidavit was sworn on October 3, 2002, and on a number of later dates in 2002 and 2003.

The document listing the changes opens with: “8.8.02 Checked the 20 files.” This is immediately followed by: “9.8.02 Made the changes.” The changes made to files Nos 5, 8, 11, 12, and 15 to 20 are then detailed.

The changes include:

The alteration of discharge dates of mothers (by a period of one year and two years);
The changing of discharge dates of children;
The changing of admission dates of mothers;
The alteration of the age of a mother (by two years);
The alteration of dates of adoption;
The changing of baptism dates and location of baptism;
The insertion of certain named locations and information into admission books.

Bessborough Mother and baby vaccine trial files altered (Irish Examiner)

Read more of Mr Ó Fátharta’s work here

Previously: Medical Trials And Children Of Lesser Gods

Laura Hutton/Rollingnews

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GlaxoSmithKline

Mother and Baby home (top); Professor Irene Hillary of UCD and Glaxo SmithKline logo

Guess what?

Everyone lied.

Via Conall Ó Fátharta in The irish Examiner:

A previously unknown fifth vaccine trial was carried out by Glaxo Laboratories on more than 30 young children here in the 1960s. The pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has previously stated only four trials were carried out in the 1960s and 1970s. These trials were carried out by the Wellcome Foundation — a GSK “heritage” company. However, documents uncovered by Michael Dwyer of UCC’s School of History, shows that a fifth trial of a measles vaccine on 34 children took place in 1965. It was carried out by Irene Hillary and Patrick Meenan of UCD’s microbiology department and AJ Beale of Glaxo Laboratories.

Fifth Vaccine Trial Exposed (irish Examiner)

The revelation of a fifth vaccine trial casts a new light on the statements and denials over the years from GlaxoSmithKline (and before that Wellcome), the Department of Health/HSE and the two UCD medics responsible for administering the vaccines, Patrick Meenan and Irene Hillary

Herewith then an updated timeline of the known medical trials conducted on children in Mother and baby homes in Ireland, the response of successive health ministers and the contemporaneous expansion and investment in Ireland of the medical companies involved in those trials.

1930-5: Burroughs-Wellcome trials (“the 1930-35 trials”) of the APT (Alum-Precipitated Toxoid) vaccine for diphtheria carried out on 2000 children in residential institutions. Stage 1 of the trials took place in 1930 and include 405 children in residential institutions in Cork City, most likely the St Joseph’s Industrial School for Boys, run by the Presentation Brothers, and St Finbarr’s Industrial School for Girls, run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Children taking part in Stage 1 suffer severe adverse reactions. Stage 2 of the trials takes place in 1934 and includes 320 children from residential institutions. Again adverse reactions are recorded. Stage 3 takes place in 1934 and involved 250 children from an unidentified institution for boys and Stage 4 takes place in 1935 and involves 360 children from St Vincent’s Industrial School, Goldenbridge, St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys, Cabra, and St Saviours’s Dominican Orphanage, Lower Dominic Street.

1961: Burroughs-Wellcome trial (“the 1961 trial”) of the effectiveness of the polio vaccine when added to the three-in-one (whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus) vaccine carried out by Prof Patrick N Meenan and Dr Irene B Hillary (“Meenan and Hillary”) of University College Dublin on 58 children in residential institutions only one of which (Bessborough, Co Cork) is identified. 28 of these children receive the proposed quadruple vaccine, with 30 getting the separate three-in-one and polio vaccines. The study concludes that there is a lower polio antibody response in those given the quadruple vaccine, and that it may, therefore, be less effective. Sixteen of 25 infants from one home develop vomiting, diarrhoea and fever after their second immunisation. Their symptoms last a few days before complete recovery. Some 36 infants from both groups are subsequently identified as having an inadequate polio antibody response, and receive booster doses. There is no further follow-up of the children involved.

1964-5: A further Burroughs-Wellcome trial of a measles vaccine (“the first 1965 trial”) is carried out by Meenan and Hillary on 12 infants aged between nine and 19 months in the Sean Ross Abbey mother-and-baby home in Tipperary.

The same year, another trial of a measles vaccine (“the second 1965 trial”) was carried out by Meenan and Hillary in conjunction with another pharmaceutical company, Glaxo, on 34 children aged between 8 months and just over 2 years. Although the location of the second 1965 trial is not known, its description in the Lancet (August 1965) indicates that it took place in a controlled institutional environment.

It appears that at least one further vaccine trial (“the third 1965 trial”) also took place in 1965. The medical records of Philip Delaney at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home, Cork, note a ‘five in one’ vaccine having been administered to him that year, as part of a vaccine trial.

1971: Burroughs-Wellcome trial (“the 1971 trial”) of intra-nasally injected rubella vaccine carried out by Burroughs Wellcome on 69 children in unidentified residential institutions. 11 children with no rubella antibodies and one with receive the intra-nasal vaccine, while six others without antibodies are used to monitor whether the vaccine virus was transmitted. There is no follow-up.

1973: Burroughs-Wellcome trial (“the 1973 trial”) of a modified three-in-one (diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus) vaccine is carried out on 53 children (including mentally and physically handicapped children) in residential institutions in Dublin (St Patrick’s Home, Madonna House, the Cottage Home, the Bird’s Nest and Bohernabreena), all of whom receive the modified vaccine. The trial also includes 65 children living at home, 61 of whom receive the original vaccine. Some of the residential institutions mistakenly believe that their residents are getting the original vaccine.

1977-1984: Following concerns as to the safety of the three-in-one vaccine generally, then Health Minister Michael Woods sets up an Expert Medical Group (“the Expert Medical Group”) to deal with applications by persons alleging to have been brain damaged by the three-in-one vaccine. There are 93 applicants, 16 of which were offered ex gratis payments with 77 applications being declined. It is not known whether or not any of the applicants included children who had formed part of the 1973 trial or indeed whether or not the Expert Medical Group considered the 1973 trial at all.

1979: Construction of new £1.25 million Wellcome Ireland Limited factory in Tallaght commences.

1981: The Irish Times reports that since 1975 the Wellcome Foundation has donated £240,000 to Irish veterinary research.

1992: Supreme Court decision in Best v Wellcome, a case successfully brought by Kenneth Best for brain damage caused by a batch of the original three-in-one vaccine. Chief Justice Liam Hamilton found Burroughs-Wellcome to have been negligent and awarded Best £2.75 million.Continue reading →

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Toys and flowers at the Little Angels memorial plot at Bessborough House in
Blackrock, Cork

Yesterday afternoon, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs published its Report of the Inter-Departmental Group on Mother and Baby Homes.

On page 17 of the report it begins to deal with the matter of the 1961, 1971 and 1975 vaccine trials carried out by Burroughs Wellcome – since taken over by GlaxoSmithKline – as seen in the following screengrab:

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However, it’s missing something.

Specifically, the final sentence in that paragraph is missing the total number of children which received the vaccines.

The sentence reads:

These vaccines were administered to a total of children in Ireland, one hundred and twenty three of whom were resident in children’s homes in various parts of Ireland.

Odd.

Furthermore, the report states 123 children who received the vaccines were residents of children’s homes across Ireland.

However, the report then includes a table which summarises the findings of a report into the vaccines carried out by the then Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health, Dr Jim Kiely, in 2000 and the figures in the table don’t add up to 123.

From the report:

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According to the figures compiled in the table 180 (58 + 69 + 53) – and not 123 – of the children who received these vaccines, in 1961, 1971 and 1973, were residents in children’s homes.

In addition, the report didn’t include the 1930-1935 trials of a Burroughs Wellcome vaccine for diphtheria carried out on 2000 children in residential institutions. Nor did it mention the 1965 trial of a ‘five-in-one’ vaccine carried out on Philip Delaney at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home, Cork.

Meanwhile,  the report also found:

“The Therapeutic Substances Act, 1932 was the statute governing the importation and use of vaccines in these trials. The Chief Medical Officer was unable to locate or identify documentation which would confirm whether or not the legal requirements of this Act were complied with in respect of these three trials.”

And in relation to the matter of consent, it found:

“As the subjects of these trials were children, effective consent to their participation in the trials could only have been given by their parents or guardians. The requirement for such consent to be obtained was clearly understood by researchers and articulated in a number of documents available to the research community at the time.” 

Read the full inter-departmental report here

Previously: Medical Trials And Children Of Lesser Gods

Why So Kind GlaxoSmithKline?

Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland