A CONSULTANT at the Mater Hospital who was also an adviser to the BTSB told the tribunal he had no recollection of hepatitis being discussed in relation to anti D in 1977 at the board's scientific meetings.
Dr James Kirrane, a consultant pathologist, who was described as having a "dual role" at the hospital and the blood board, said he could remember only jaundice being discussed in connection with anti D at these meetings, not hepatitis.
An agenda for one of these regular meetings in 1977 shows that anti D/hepatitis was to be discussed. But Dr Kirrane said he had no recollection of that.
"The memory I have of that period is the term jaundice being used. I have a firm recollection of jaundice being discussed at those meetings in Pelican House," he told Mr Rory Brady SC, counsel for the tribunal.
Earlier the tribunal had heard that Dr John Lennon, a gastroenterologist at the same hospital, had asked Dr Kirrane to raise the matter of two women who had reactions after receiving anti D.
Dr Lennon had written to Dr J.P. O'Riordan, national director of the BTSB, concerning these patients. In the letter he stated he had spoken to Dr Kirrane about the cases.
"I brought the information to Pelican House, I believe to Dr Terry Walsh. It was recorded in one of Dr Lennon's letters so I accept that but I have no recollection of it," said Dr Kirrane.
Mr Brady drew attention to an internal hospital document which was marked for Dr Kirrane's attention and went through the laboratory where he was in charge. It related to one of the patients and had HEPATITIS marked in capital letters on it.
The clinical details had the words "anti D" with an arrow towards the word "hepatitis". Dr Kirrane said he did not believe he had ever received this document.
Mr Brady asked if it was a "reasonable conclusion from reading this document that the clinician or whoever drew up the document drew a clear link between anti D and hepatitis?"
Dr Kirrane said it was.
Mr Brady showed another hospital document about certain examinations of patients, which was signed by Dr Kirrane. It indicated a similar link between anti D and hepatitis.
Dr Kirrane said he would have read this document but did not have a "specific recollection" of It.
The tribunal also heard that the laboratory forms relating to one of the women with hepatitis were marked with orange stickers to alert laboratory workers that they were dealing with samples of a "potentially hazardous nature".
"Were you aware that at that stage, within the BTSB, anti D and infective hepatitis were being discussed?" asked Mr Brady.
"I do not recall hepatitis being discussed at Pelican House," said Dr Kirrane.
He began working for the BTSB in the early 1970s to advise it on the establishment of two laboratories, including the fractionation laboratory where the anti D was made. He would have reported to the BTSB that two patients had developed jaundice, he said.
Dr Kirrane said he did not recall any discussion at the BTSB's scientific meetings about the decision to cease making anti D using patient X's plasma in 1977, or the decision to continue to use the existing stock which included her plasma.
He said he was not aware that the board was using a woman who was being transfused with plasma in the anti D programme. He attended the scientific meetings to give verbal progress reports on the two laboratories but had no "clinical involvement".
Dr Kirrane told the tribunal he only got the "full measure" of the problems in the BTSB when he read the report of the Expert Group in 1994.