The Department of Health has said it did not sanction the harvesting during post-mortem examinations of glands from deceased patients by Irish hospitals in the 1980s, nor the subsequent transfer of the glands to pharmaceutical companies to be used for the manufacture of growth hormone.
It said yesterday that the Department was in fact unaware of the practice until the year 2000, when it announced it was establishing the Dunne inquiry into the affair.
It said the arrangements in relation to glands were entered into "locally" by hospitals, unknown to the Department.
Its statement came as two further hospitals - Mayo General Hospital and Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe, Co Galway - admitted harvesting pituitary glands from deceased patients in the 1970s and 1980s and supplying them to the KabiVitrum pharmaceutical company. Only adult glands were retained at Portiuncula.
This brings to 19 the number of hospitals which have admitted supplying pituitary glands, a tiny structure at the base of the brain, to pharmaceutical companies. Up to six pharmaceutical companies are believed to have been involved, but only two have so far issued statements confirming this. These are Pharmacia (KabiVitrum) and Novo Nordisk.
Yesterday Danish firm Novo Nordisk, which said on Wednesday it had been provided with 2,500 pituitary glands by 32 Irish hospitals from 1976 to 1986, revised upwards to 7,500 the number of glands it received over the 10-year period.
Dr Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, executive vice-president and chief science officer of the company, said a review of figures revealed three times as many glands had been supplied to it than originally thought.
Pharmacia said it only received pituitary glands and Novo Nordisk said it was almost 100 per cent certain it too only received pituitary glands.
However Parents for Justice, the support group for families affected by the controversy, claims pancreatic, adrenal and thyroid glands were also harvested.
The Faculty of Pathologists at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, in its submission to the Dunne inquiry, has indicated small payments of 50 pence to £2 per gland were made to pathology technicians.
They said it was recognised that actively collecting pituitary glands was an additional task for pathology technicians so the small payment was made as a "handling" fee. Other inducements such as textbooks for hospital libraries were also sometimes provided.
Dr James Reilly, president of the Irish Medical Organisation, also said there was no evidence the organs were exported for profit.