The leading treater of haemophiliacs in the State, Prof Ian Temperley, was shocked when he received an anonymous telephone call in June 1986 telling him the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB) was making a clotting agent from plasma donations which had not been screened for HIV.
Mr Charles Meenan SC, counsel for Dr Terry Walsh, a former consultant haematologist at the BTSB, asked Prof Temperley if he called the blood bank to see what was going on. "I suppose I might have done but I didn't," Prof Temperley replied.
He said he assumed that after October 1985, the BTSB issued only heat-treated products and he hadn't even thought about products being made from unscreened plasma donations until he received the call. "It came as a shock and a surprise to me," he said.
Prof Temperley met Dr Walsh shortly afterwards on June 25th, 1986, but he could not recall if he told him about the telephone call. They discussed the number of haemophilia B patients, those deficient in Factor 9, who had tested HIV-positive. Following the discussion, Dr Walsh sent a letter to hospitals telling them that any non-heat treated BTSB Factor 9 clotting agent should be returned to Pelican House.
But Prof Temperley said this letter or withdrawal notice did not "go far enough", as it did not refer to products made from unscreened donations. Non-heat treated Factor 9 resulted in the infection of seven haemophiliacs in the State with HIV.