Patsy McGarry Investigation into child vaccine trial halted in 2004

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/patsy-mcgarry-7.1837384

Jun 9, 2014, 01:05

Patsy McGarry

Investigation into child vaccine trial halted in 2004

UCD academics challenged court ruling on health and reputational grounds

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin: has called for a properly constituted commission to examine issues raised by the discovery of mass baby deaths at St Mary’s mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway – including allegations that medical trials were carried out on children. Photograph: Alan Betson

Patsy McGarry

• Topics:
• News
• Social Affairs
• Religion & Beliefs
• Irene Hillary
• Justice Adrian Hardiman
• Justice Ronan Keane
• Mary Harney

Mon, Jun 9, 2014, 01:05

First published:Mon, Jun 9, 2014, 01:05

The investigation into a vaccine trial on children in mother and baby homes, which politicians and Catholic Church leaders are now calling for, has previously been dealt with by the High Court, which declared one invalid in June 2004.

The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, yesterday called for a properly constituted commission to examine issues raised by the discovery of mass baby deaths at St Mary’s mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway – including allegations that medical trials were carried out on children.

The 2004 court ruling followed a challenge to a government order directing an investigation into such vaccine trials, under the aegis of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. The challenge was brought by retired UCD professor of microbiology Irene Hillary.

• Some reporting on Tuam story 'mistaken'
• Archbishop Martin calls for full inquiry into mother and baby homes
• Archbishop of Tuam warns of ‘bad shepherds’
• Protest ‘for justice’ held outside former Bessborough mother and baby home

Professional reputation

Prof Hillary had expressed concern about the implications for her professional reputation of the establishment of an inquiry into the vaccination trials under the aegis of a commission set up to inquire into the issue of child abuse.

Previously, in July 2003, a unanimous judgment by the Supreme Court upheld an appeal by the late UCD professor Patrick Meenan against a High Court decision which had directed him to give evidence before the vaccine trials division of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.

It concerned vaccination trials on 58 children in 1960 and 1961. Prof Meenan, then aged 86, said he should not have to appear on grounds of his age and ill-health.

The commission was empowered by the government under a statutory instrument of June 2001 to inquire into the conduct of vaccination trials. The trial concerned took place between December 1960 and November 1961. Results were published in the British Medical Journal in 1962.

The 58 children came from mother and baby homes at Bessborough, Cork, at Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, at Dunboyne and Stamullen, Co Meath, at St Patrick’s on Navan Road, Dublin, and at Mount Carmel Industrial School in Moate, Co Westmeath.

At the time, Prof Meenan held the chair of microbiology in UCD. He was responsible for importing the vaccines used in the trials and was one of six authors of a study of the results reported in the British Medical Journal.

Decision criticised

Finding in his favour, the Supreme Court implicitly criticised the decision to ask the commission to examine the vaccine trials issue in the first place.

Mr Justice Ronan Keane said these trials “appear to have only the most tenuous connection, if any, with the appalling social evil of the sexual and physical abuse of children in institutions, which was the specific area into which the commission was established to inquire”.

Wat doet dat mens op mijn trap: n'oublie pas l'été !

 

Een groep van 117 gezondheidsmedewerkers van een ziekenhuis in de Amerikaanse staat Texas heeft een rechtszaak aangespannen tegen hun werkgever omdat die hen verplicht zich te laten vaccineren.

De medewerkers zeggen dat de verplichte inenting tegen het coronavirus in strijd is met de Code van Neurenberg, normen die na de Tweede Wereldoorlog zijn ontworpen om experimenten met menselijke proefpersonen zonder hun toestemming te voorkomen.

De medewerkers zeggen in de The Washington Post mogelijk hun baan te verliezen als ze zich weigeren te laten prikken.

KLIK

 Dat is in hun ogen in strijd met de staatwet, reden dat ze de rechtbank vragen te beletten dat het ziekenhuis in Houston niet-gevaccineerde medewerkers ontslaat.

dát zou ik maar niet doen!

Bruno Roy laisse une grande famille

nuair atá an cat amuigh bíonn na luch ag damhsa

 

 

"Meisjes koop niet bij joden"

Plantage Middenlaan: schouwburg tegenover De Schouwburg

Bosbeek:

met een héle grote zak met poepschepjes en een grappig zwaaiend mannetje met een petje op

Ja, ik heb woedend de GGD van die veiligheidsregio met haar 3 kruisjes gebeld ik wilde mijn injectie en kreeg een fantastische vrouw aan de lijn

Ik ben tenslotte een burger van Amsterdam 

Mét een Poortersbewijs met  meer dan genoeg quarantaines achter de rug waarvan  één 

"They're going to issue an apology tomorrow, sure why would they issue an apology when we haven't even read the report?" Ms Larkin said. 

"What good is an apology? I think they should apologise in six months' time when we have some knowledge of what the report is about."

RTÉ, 12-1-2021

13-1-2021

Patsy McGarry

Irish Times

 

The children of unmarried women ‘boarded out’ to farms from Mother and Baby Homes were often worked hard from a very young age and were open to abuse, both physical and sexual

In 1957 a notice in the Tuam Herald read: Children to be Boarded Out. It invited applications from women for girls under seven and boys under five years of age and detailed the maintenance allowance to be paid for their upkeep.

The children were in Tuam Mothers and Baby Home, an institution run by the Bon Secours sisters from 1925 to 1961, and the practice of ‘boarding out’ sted deserted children were, in effect, fostered out to families who wmmed from the workhouse system in the 19th century where poor, orphaned anere paid to keep them. 

It’s unknown exactly how many children were ‘boarded out’ from Mother and Baby Homes and industrial schools in Ireland as adoption did not become legal until 1952, but historians put it at thousands.

kriebel, kriebel, kriebel, sincerely yours

KLIK

Ga naar de markt
koop een koe,
Een stukje van de longen
Voor een zieke jongen
stukje van de lever,
voor de zieke wever
stukje van de pens,
voor de zieke mens.

28 - 8 - 2018 

KLIK

KLIK

Hooggeëerd publiek, dames en heren, beste mensen

"Auf dass der Kindermord nicht künftig wird verübet,

Der von tyrannischer Hand der Mutter oft geschieht,

Die gleichsam Molochs Wuth ihr Kindlein übergiebet,

Ist dieser Torno hier auf ewig aufgericht."

1709,  Babyluik Hamburg 

Personal records a priority for mother and baby home survivors Zappone critical of HSE failings on mother and baby homes

Senior HSE staff highlighted concerns five years ago but these were not fully investigated

 Jul 1, 2017, 

 TheIrish Times

Kitty Holland 

It was a “pity” the HSE did not fully investigate mother and baby homes in 2012 when senior staff warned about probable “criminal” activities in two of them from the 1920s, Minister for Children Katherine Zappone has said.

She said it was “not good”that the call for an inquiry by senior HSE staff five years ago were not heeded. The staff had called for “a fully fledged, fully resourced forensic investigation and State inquiry,” into the Sacred Heart mother and baby homes at Tuam, Co Galway and Bessborough, Co Cork.

A Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes was established in February 2015. It was in response to public outcry at the findings of historian Catherine Corless that up to 800 infants’ bodies may have been buried in a septic tank at the Tuam home.

However, HSE documents from October 2012, marked “strictly confidential”, show social workers were warning of the “possibility that illegal actions took place” in the Cork and Tuam homes from the 1920s.

Consultant in public health at the HSE’s health intelligence unit, Dr Declan McKeown, prepared a briefing paper for his line manger, Dr Davida De La Harpe, and Phil Garland, assistant national director of the HSE’s child and family services, in October 2012.

He outlines findings by investigating social workers in the south and west who had been preparing documents for the forthcoming report from an interdepartmental committee into Magdalene laundries. The social workers looked at referral pathways to and from mother and baby homes.

Possible trafficking

He refers to “protracted detainment” of women in the homes, “in some cases against their expressed will”; the possible trafficking of women between institutions; the fact that institutions were being paid for the upkeep of women who had left, and “infant mortality rates in the homes in 1950” which were “equivalent to [rates] in Ireland in the 1700s.”

“This may prove to be a scandal that dwarfs other, more recent issues with the church and State because of the very emotive sensitivities around adoption of babies, with or without the will of the mother,” warns Dr McKeown.

According to the minutes of a conference call between Dr De La Harpe, Mr Garland, and Dr McKeown, in October 2012, it was agreed that Dr McKeown would “draft an early-warning one-to-two pager” for the HSE’s national director of quality improvement, Philip Crowley, “suggesting that this goes all the way up to the Minister”. The minister for health at the time was James Reilly.

“A concern is that, if there is evidence of trafficking of babies, that it must have been facilitated by doctors, social workers, etc, and a number of these health professional may still be working in the system. It is important to send this up to the minister as soon as possible with a view to an interdepartmental committee and a fully-fledged, fully resourced forensic investigation and State inquiry.”

Magdalene inquiry

In October 2016 Mr Crowley wrote to a mother and baby home survivor saying because the 2012 material did not relate to the Magdalene inquiry, it was given to the director designate of Tusla. This was Gordon Jeyes who became the first chief executive of Tusla when it was established in 2014.

Mr Jeyes has told The Irish Times, that while the files may have been transferred to Tusla upon its creation, the decision about whether to investigate their contents was one for HSE in 2012. This was not something Tusla had the forensic capabilities or resources for, he said. “The buck did not stop with me, or Tusla.”

A spokeswoman for the HSE said the 2012 report was “not brought to Minister’s attention at that time”.

Katherine Zappone hosted event in Dublin, with more planned around

country

 Jun 30, 2017

 The Irish Times

Kitty Holland 

The “most important” thing for survivors of mother and baby homes is getting all their personal information, according to many of those attending the first of a series of consultation meetings with Minister for Children Katherine Zappone.

Speaking to The Irish Times after the meeting in Dublin on Friday, survivors said they wanted redress, counselling, more information about the ongoing Commission of Inquiry into the homes and the recording of a “collective history” of their experiences.

Almost all, however, said “the biggest thing” was accessing the records of their time in institutions, as well as to those of their mothers and siblings, and their own medical records.

Ms Zappone hosted the event in Dublin city centre which was attended by 120 survivors and family members. It was oversubscribed and more events are planned around the country.

• Warning issued about deaths of 'illegitimate' children in 1945
• Marianvale survivor: ‘My son was taken away and no one cares’

Ms Zappone explained she had invited survivors, to hear what they needed and wanted, following publication of the second interim report from Judge Yvonne Murphy, chair of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. In February Justice Murphy recommended that survivors should have redress, though this is been opposed by Government.

Final report

Given that the final report would not be published until February 2018, Ms Zappone wanted to consult with survivors. She would bring her findings from consultations to Cabinet in October, she said.

“I want to respond as quickly as possible in order to put something in place to support people,” she said.

Among those at Friday’s consultation was Catherine Coffey-O’Brien, (46) from Mayfield, Cork, who was born in a mother and baby home, and grew up in and out of industrial schools in Tralee and Killarney. A Traveller, she was subsequently in Bessboro mother and baby home when she became pregnant and believes her ethnicity made her and her family particularly vulnerable to being placed in institutions.

“For me, this is not about getting revenge, but about getting closure. I need my records, my medical records and my information.”

Tony Kelly (71), who who was born in St Theresa’s mother and baby home in Blackrock, Co Dublin, and was in nine foster homes, questioned why the consultations were taking place at all while Ms Justice Murphy’s inquiry was ongoing. “What we want is full transparency and accountability,” he said.

Government alarm at possible redress for mother and baby home victims