No charges in 30-year ordeal of Anti-D victims
THE scandal of the Hepatitis C contamination of the blood product Anti-D, given to mothers to prevent them having blue babies, is 31-years-old this year.
But it was only in recent weeks the final chapter in the long-running campaign for pursuit of justice was written when the DPP decided former blood bank biochemist Cecily Cunningham would not face any criminal trial. All the other main players are now dead and nobody will be held accountable.
For the victims however, the nightmare continues and they are having to live with the ill effects of the virus which can severely damage the liver.
At least 42 of these women have died from various causes, including liver failure linked to Hepatitis C. Among them is Brigid McCole who passed away in 1996 as the State fought her compensation claim, even as she lay on her deathbed.
Contamination
The contamination happened in 1977 and again in the early 1990s but it only came to light in 1994 . The blood bank tried to play it down but over 70,000 women were tested and 1,200 were either infected with the virus or antibodies.
It took a tribunal of inquiry in 1996 to establish that the blood bank had broken its own rules in taking plasma from donors.
A statutory compensation tribunal has been sitting since 1996 and so far it has paid out €818m. It also hears claims from people who got Hepatitis C through blood transfusion. Since 2002 it has also heard additional claims from people with haemophilia who also got the virus and HIV through contaminated products.
