The Commission found that the trials in seven institutions it investigated were illegal and unethical even by the standards of the time.
It said scientists lacked the correct research licences and failed to comply with contemporary regulatory standards.
The report concludes that these trials would have been a basic
breach of the Nuremberg Code, following the trial of Nazi doctors accused of conducting murderous and torturous human experiments in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II.
The existence of a trial at Bessborough of an experimental '5 in 1' vaccine (anti diphtheria, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and measles), first reported by RTÉ's Prime Time, has been confirmed by the Commission.
The Commission's report contains a list of the trials:
1930
Trial of
Wellcome anti-diphtheria vaccine on 142 children in two unidentified orphanages and to 436 children aged between eight months and 14 years among the general child population in Cork city.
1934
Trial of
Wellcome anti-diphtheria vaccine on 24 children, varying in age from seven months to 14 years, resident in the Dublin Union, later known as St Pat’s.
1934-36
Trial of
Wellcome 'one-shot' anti-diphtheria vaccine to 250 children in an unidentified residential institution for boys and to 2,541 children among the general population in Co Cork.
1935
Trial of
Wellcome vaccine on 46 children, aged four to 15 years, resident in St Vincent’s Industrial School, Goldenbridge, St Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys, Cabra, and St Saviour’s Orphanage, Lower Dominick Street, Dublin.
1935
Trial of
Wellcome anti-diphtheria vaccine in children’s residential institutions in Tipperary.
1960/1961
Trial of
Wellcome Quadruple (4 in 1) vaccine ‘Quadrivax’ on 58 infants and children resident in a number of institutions, including Bessborough, St Patrick’s Home, Navan Road (Pelletstown); Dunboyne; and Castlepollard.
1964
Trial of
Wellcome ‘Wellcovax’ measles vaccine on 12 children living in Sean Ross.
1964/65
Trial of
Glaxo Laboratories ‘Mevilin-L’ measles vaccine on children living in Bessborough and St Patrick’s, Navan Road (Pelletstown).
1965
Trial of
Glaxo Laboratories ‘Quintuple’ (5 in 1) vaccine on children Bessborough and St Patrick’s, Navan Road (Pelletstown).
1968/1969
Trial of
Glaxo Laboratories ‘Mevilin-L’ measles vaccine on at least 30 children resident in St Patrick’s, Navan Road (Pelletstown).
1970
Trial of
Wellcome’s Rubella vaccine on 72 children living in the general community and 69 children aged between two and 18 years old "resident in an orphanage in a suburb of Dublin".
1973
Trial of
Wellcome’s modified DTP vaccine on 65 children in the general community and 53 children resident in St Patrick’s, Navan Road (Pelletstown), and in three residential children’s homes.
1965
Possible oral polio vaccine trial in St Patrick’s, Navan Road (Pelletstown).
The Commission has also confirmed that two milk trials first reported in the Irish Examiner, had taken place.
They were clinical trials into experimental infant milk conducted in St Pat’s Navan Road (Pelletstown), and Bessborough in 1968/69.
https://www.rte.ie/news/mother-and-baby-homes/2021/0116/1190207-mother-baby-home-vaccine/