Irish Times Reporter THE Department of Health has yet to establish if any people who received a toxic batch of the childhood whooping-cough vaccination in the late 1960s were affected, a spokesman said yesterday.
Those who received the vaccine are in their 30s now, the spokesman said, so it is likely they would be contacted directly rather than through their parents.
New information about the controversial three-in-one vaccine, found to be responsible for the brain-damage of Cork baby Kenneth Best in 1969, emerged in answer to a Dail question last week.
The Minister for Health, Mr Cowen, confirmed the Department of Health has tracked down records showing 253 doses of toxic batch of vaccine had been administered. The actual figure could be much higher as the vaccine was given before the health boards were established and a large number of boards said they had no records of vaccinations.
"My Department has no information to suggest that any child who received three-in-one vaccine from any of the lots in question suffered serious damage as a result, other than in the case decided in the Supreme Court in 1992, which involved a recipient of vaccine from lot number 69684," Mr Cowen said in a statement.
A group set up in 1977 to examine the issue of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine found it was impossible to link it with any damage suffered by recipients.
However, in 1992 the Supreme Court found in favour of Kenneth Best, holding that the pharmaceutical company, Wellcome, was liable for his brain damage on the basis of the toxicity of the batch.
The Department wrote to health boards in 1993 about tracking the batch and they "did not succeed in tracing any information in this regard", according to the Department.
Information from Glaxo Wellcome in 1997 and last year on the lot numbers was put again to health boards and final responses have been received from seven of the eight boards.
The Mid-Western Health Board identified the highest number of doses, with 181 records of immunisations from the affected batch. The Southern Health Board said 59 children had received the vaccine and the Western Health Board identified three children in the Galway region.