Children in mother and baby homes were repeatedly used as guinea pigs in vaccine trials during which ethical and regulatory guidelines were flouted.
The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation identified seven vaccine trials which took place at institutions between 1934 and 1973.
These included trials for a measles vaccine and a four-in-one “Quadrivax” for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and polio.
According to the Commission, the trials all involved either the Wellcome Foundation or Glaxo Laboratories. These companies are today both part of GlaxoSmithKline.
The Commission said it was clear from its investigations that relevant regulatory and ethical standards of the time were not complied with.
“The only thing that’s good that came out today is the fact that we’re being acknowledged at last. Mothers who were locked away and lived with their silent grief will now have the opportunity to be able to talk about it and cry about it. And that’s something.”
After the webinar some survivors attended with the Taoiseach and Minister Roderic O’Gorman this afternoon, Terri contacted some women who weren’t part of the call – women in their 70s and 80s who waited decades to be told “you did nothing wrong”.
Terri has mixed feeling about the webinar and whether or not the attitudes of government towards survivors have changed.
I felt the need to share my adoption journey from the perspective of a 30-something-year-old. I think it is important for young people out there who are at home during these uncertain times to learn of the hard, difficult paths so many adopted people have had to go through to get to this stage.
New York Times article on the mother and baby homes report. Source: New York Times
The New York Times said the report “found a shocking number of deaths and widespread abuses” at the homes.
“For decades, the stories of these places and the atrocities carried out in them, were largely unspoken despite calls from the mothers who became virtual prisoners within their walls and children who spent their earliest years there, later sharing stories of neglect and abuse.
But as the country has made strides to reckon with uglier aspects of its conservative Roman Catholic roots, deeply intertwined with the foundation of the state, there have been recent moments when the scale of the systemic abuses has been thrust into the light.