A PERSON who had jaundice or hepatitis should have been immediately dropped as a donor in the 1970s and their donations destroyed, the tribunal heard yesterday.
Prof Hans Hoppe, an expert in making anti D, said immediate action should be taken and stocks withdrawn from circulation.
"We would know there was something suspicious," said the Professor of Forensic Genetics at the University of Hamburg, who is also a medical doctor.
Mr James Nugent, counsel for the tribunal, asked Prof Hoppe if he had heard in July 1977 that four people who had received anti D from a patient who had jaundice got jaundice themselves what would he believe the appropriate action would be? "I would discard it (the anti D) immediately and draw it back from circulation," he replied. "The whole batch would be called back and destroyed immediately."
During the 1960s, he developed a method of extracting immunolglobulin from blood plasma. Two BTSB staff, Ms Cecily Cunningham, head of fractionation, and Mr J.L. Wilkinson, assistant chief medical director visited his laboratory in Hamburg for a week to learn the method.
They began their own anti D programme in Dublin in 1970.
In 1972 Prof Hoppe modified his method, removing a step which had earlier been thought to reduce the hepatitis virus. He introduced "tough safety measures for donors, using only women who had pre-formed antibodies and were post menopausal.
He told Mr John Rogers SC counsel for Positive Action and the McCole family, that he would not have used pregnant women in his anti D programme for ethical reasons. Nor would he have used person who had previously under gone a transfusion.
His donors went through a very strict laboratory and clinical examination. After their donations were made the plasma was stored in a freezer for an "essential" quarantine of six months and the donors checked for hepatitis at least three times during that period. Prof Hoppe said he would have indicated that quite clearly from the beginning.
He said he passed on the details of his method to the BTSB. He did not know why the board had not taken on his modifications.
He had only heard in the past year what had occurred in the 1970s. But he did remember a telephone call from Ms Cunningham in August 1977 concerning a woman (patient X) who had jaundice. He asked if she had hepatitis and Ms Cunningham said she did not.
He confirmed that a number of medical articles were written at that time relating to a third unidentified form of hepatitis, non A, non B. "We would have removed the donor. There were cases all over the world at that time showing no indication of hepatitis A or B, but nevertheless the person was suffering from hepatitis," said Prof Hoppe, who is now retired.
He also told the tribunal that Dr Jack O'Riordan, the national director of the BTSB in the 1970s, was a great friend of mine". It confirmed the anti D programme had been put in place by Dr O'Riordan. "He was head of the board at that time and of course he was in charge. He was a very thorough man. I was very impressed by his thoroughness and that of his staff."