- TheJournal.ie - Ten mother and baby homes carried out vaccine trials on almost 300 children – report
More than 298 children across ten mother and baby homes were subject to experimental vaccine trials during the 1960s and 1970s, reports Newstalk.
Newstalk Breakfast claims that vaccine trials were conducted at homes at Bessborough in Co Cork, St Peter’s in Co Westmeath, St Clare’s in Stamullen, and The Good Shepherd in Dunboyne as well as six other Dublin homes.
It is believed the trials took place between 1960 to 1976.
While the state could not provide the information about the number of drug trials that were carried out on children, Glaxo SmithKline were compelled to supply documents in relation to the drug trials in 2000.
Yesterday, the Junior Minister for Health Kathleen Lynch told The Sunday Independent that the vaccine trials carried out in mother and baby homes should form part of any forthcoming government inquiry.
The Irish Independent reported in 2010 about the ’four-in-one’ vaccine trials being carried out at Bessborough.
Sister Sarto, a retired nun, who was working in Bessborough also told Newstalk Breakfast that parental consent was given for these trials.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning, Tanya Ward from Children’s Rights Alliance said that the state should “at the very least” take responsibilty for what happened in the mother and baby homes.
She said that even in the 1940s the state had a responsibilty and an obligation to “protect children who were without the protection of their parents”.
Ward said that even if a wide-ranging inquiry is put in place, most likely, there will be “very little criminal prosecutions”.
She added that she thought that there is strong evidence that, if anything, there was a high infant mortality rate at the Tuam mother and baby home which she said brought the care regime into question.
*Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn has said he broadly supports calls for a full inquiry into all mother-and-baby homes.
*Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn has said he broadly supports calls for a full inquiry into all mother-and-baby homes.
Yesterday, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, called for an independent commission of investigation with judicial powers.
He said the truth of what happened in all the homes must come out.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Quinn today said that Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan will have to report to Cabinet on how to proceed.
Mr Quinn said he expected there would be some sort of inquiry but that the precise nature and structure needs to be decided.
He said: "These things need to be looked at in the context of their time.
"This is not the same as abuse that was done in residential institutions."
The minister also said some of the international reporting on the story was misleading and sensationalist; particularly on the home in Tuam where over 800 children died between 1925 and 1961.
"I think that the facts should be brought together in a coherent form because some of the headlines that went abroad internationally were quite horrendous and gave a very mistaken impression of what actually happened."
Meanwhile, National Archives of Ireland Head of Special Projects Catriona Crowe said that all records from all former mother-and-child homes in the State must be retrieved as a first step in any inquiry.
While the records were the private property of the religious orders that ran the homes, and the National Archives had no powers to access them, she said there should be a sea change in the attitude of the orders to disclosure.
Speaking on the same programme, she said only two or three congregations were involved.
They should be asked to disclose what records they have and in what condition the information is, she said.
She said she was aware that the Health Service Executive had at least one set of records and possibly more.
Historians should also be involved in assessing any records, she added.
Meanwhile, Ian Elliott, a former chief executive of the Catholic Church's National Board for Safeguarding Children, has said he would be very interested in taking part in any investigation into the homes.
Archbishop Martin yesterday said that Mr Elliott should be involved in any eventual investigation.
Contacted by RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Elliott said it was a matter of such public importance that there should be an inquiry into how the homes were operated and managed.
He also reiterated Archbishop Martin's call for adoption practices to be part of any eventual inquiry.
On Tuam, he said it is a matter of public record that mortality rates within the homes were markedly higher than in the broader community.
It was important to know why that was the case, he added.
Meanwhile, a UCD Historian who gained access to Dublin diocesan archives has said records show that staff at St Patrick's Guild in Dublin was addressing death rates of babies in their care in the 1940s.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke, Dr Conor Mulvagh said St Patrick's Guild, then based at Middle Abbey Street in Dublin, sought the help of UCD, Trinity College Dublin and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland to address disproportionate mortality rates for babies at the institution in the mid to late 1940s.
Dr Mulvagh said some mothers underwent pre-natal screening using resources available at these institutions.
He added many expectant mothers were treated for syphilis as a result and these women went on to deliver healthy babies.
*UPDATE:
*UPDATE:
Children adopted from a mother-and-baby home run by the Sacred Heart Sisters in Cork have called for an independent public inquiry to find out how many babies died at the centre and where the bodies are buried.
The adoptees have also called on the Government to provide them with counselling and to support surviving mothers who gave birth at Bessborough House.
The call was made yesterday after members of the Bessborough Mothers and Babies Group gathered at the site in Mahon-Blackrock, commemorating the babies who died there.
BMBG spokeswoman Helen Murphy, who was adopted out of Bessborough in 1963, said the group had no idea how many babies died there, but said the number was higher than the near 800 buried in a mass grave at a similar facility also operated by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, Co Galway.
Former chief medical officer at the Department of Health, James Deeny, estimated that more than 100 babies had died in Bessborough in one year alone.
It is understood that a similar number of babies were secretly taken to the US for adoption.
Adoptees from Bessborough yesterday told how, in many cases, it took decades of searching before they were able to make contact with their biological mothers — and in some cases it was too late.
Carmel Hayes, who was born in Bessborough at Christmas 1962 to her 17-year-old mother, said: “I eventually got my file, but it took years and years. Then one of the nuns tracked her down for me. I was lucky.”
One woman described the “unbelievably traumatic” experience of having her baby taken from her at Bessborough.
Marion Kelly recalled how, aged 18 in 1974, she was induced in a Cork City hospital before being transferred to Bessborough.
“It was unbelievably traumatic for me. When they took away my baby, they took away my life,” said Ms Kelly.
*The Chief Executive of Tusla, the child and family agency, has said records for the mother-and-baby homes in Tuam, Bessborough in Cork, and St Patrick's on the Navan Road in Dublin have been transferred to the agency.
*The Chief Executive of Tusla, the child and family agency, has said records for the mother-and-baby homes in Tuam, Bessborough in Cork, and St Patrick's on the Navan Road in Dublin have been transferred to the agency.
Gordon Jeyes told RTÉ's News At One there are nine registers dating between 1921 and 1961 as well as quarterly returns that went to county councils that date back to 1919.
He said there is no difficulty in making these available to the cross-departmental investigation due to be established by Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan.
Mr Jeyes said it is his understanding that Tusla is in possession of all the available records.
He said some of the publicity surrounding these events is unfortunate in terms of the way it has been misreported, causing distress.
Mr Jeyes said that Tusla plans to digitise them and make them accessible to the individuals concerned, any relevant inquiry and to social historians to provide an accurate knowledge about Ireland in the past.
He said this is private data, which is being held in trust on behalf of individuals.
However, his agency is seeking to strengthen the information available to the Department of Justice and the Minister for Children.
He said it is important to get the balance right between privacy and making sure information is available.
Earlier, Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn said he broadly supports calls for a full inquiry into all mother-and-baby homes.
Yesterday, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, called for an independent commission of investigation with judicial powers.
He said the truth of what happened in all the homes must come out.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Quinn today said that Mr Flanagan will have to report to Cabinet on how to proceed.
Mr Quinn said he expected there would be some sort of inquiry but that the precise nature and structure needs to be decided.
He said: "These things need to be looked at in the context of their time.
"This is not the same as abuse that was done in residential institutions."
The minister also said some of the international reporting on the story was misleading and sensationalist; particularly on the home in Tuam where over 800 children died between 1925 and 1961.
"I think that the facts should be brought together in a coherent form because some of the headlines that went abroad internationally were quite horrendous and gave a very mistaken impression of what actually happened."
Meanwhile, National Archives of Ireland Head of Special Projects Catriona Crowe said that all records from all former mother-and-child homes in the State must be retrieved as a first step in any inquiry.
While the records were the private property of the religious orders that ran the homes, and the National Archives had no powers to access them, she said there should be a sea change in the attitude of the orders to disclosure.
Speaking on the same programme, she said only two or three congregations were involved.
They should be asked to disclose what records they have and in what condition the information is, she said.
She said she was aware that the Health Service Executive had at least one set of records and possibly more.
Historians should also be involved in assessing any records, she added.
Meanwhile, Ian Elliott, a former Chief Executive of the Catholic Church's National Board for Safeguarding Children, has said he would be very interested in taking part in any investigation into the homes.
Archbishop Martin yesterday said that Mr Elliott should be involved in any eventual investigation.
Contacted by RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Elliott said it was a matter of such public importance that there should be an inquiry into how the homes were operated and managed.
He also reiterated Archbishop Martin's call for adoption practices to be part of any eventual inquiry.
On Tuam, he said it is a matter of public record that mortality rates within the homes were markedly higher than in the broader community.
It was important to know why that was the case, he added.
Meanwhile, a UCD Historian who gained access to Dublin diocesan archives has said records show that staff at St Patrick's Guild in Dublin were addressing death rates of babies in their care in the 1940s.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke, Dr Conor Mulvagh said St Patrick's Guild, then based at Middle Abbey Street in Dublin, sought the help of UCD, Trinity College Dublin and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland to address disproportionate mortality rates for babies at the institution in the mid-to-late 1940s.
Dr Mulvagh said some mothers underwent pre-natal screening using resources available at these institutions.
He added many expectant mothers were treated for syphilis as a result and these women went on to deliver healthy babies.
Keywords: mother-and-baby homes
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