Letter: Negligence over growth hormone must be redressed

Sir: Following publication of your article on pituitary gland collection (16 August), the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning read out a second Department of Health statement denying liability for the growth hormone from which nine British children have died. I am horrified at the callous way in which the department appears not only to want to wash its hands over the whole Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease affair but also seems to be deliberately altering the wording of its denials.

Last summer, when the department was first publicly challenged over the deaths, the statement appeared to lay the blame at the clinicians' door by stating that the treatment conformed with the knowledge then available about good clinical practice. Subsequently, when the manufacturing process was questioned, it appeared to change its defence by declaring that its production confirmed with good practice. Clearly this was not the case, since the department's own Committee for the Safety of Medicines refused the drug a product licence.

Why can't the department admit now that a tragic mistake was made and that compensation should be paid to the families and dependants of those who have died, those who might currently be suffering and those at risk in the same way as the haemophiliacs who had received HIV-contaminated blood were compensated. I believe that the department will have to admit liability in the end.

Sincerely,

TAM FRY

Honorary Chairman

Child Growth Foundation

London, W4

16 August