More hospitals admits supplying dead children's glands
Two more hospitals have admitted supplying a pharmaceutical company with pituitary glands taken from deceased children to extract growth hormones.
The Coombe Women's Hospital in Dublin and Cork University Hospital have told RTÉ news they were involved in the practice.
Yesterday Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin said it had written to around 20 parents to confirm that the pituitary glands of their children were passed on to Pharmacia Ireland Ltd.
The issue first arose four years ago as part of the organ retention inquiry, but the hospital has only confirmed this week, through late information supplied by the company, which families were affected.
The pituitary gland is a small structure around one centimetre in size at the base of the brain, which assists in the production of human growth hormone.
Children deficient in the hormone can have their growth seriously impaired.
A means of isolating the hormone from pituitary glands harvested during autopsies was discovered in the 1960s.
Hospitals in Ireland and internationally participated in one or other of a number of international pituitary programmes until a synthetic form of the hormone became available in the 1980s, the hospital said in a statement.