Letter: Ethics ignored at the hospital morgue

Sir: As a recipient of human growth hormone between 1983 and 1985, and as one of the people demanding that a compensation fund be set up for those who contract Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) through receiving the hormone, and their families, I would like to respond to David Harper-Jones' letter (17 August). Although we may have been privileged to receive our original treatment on the NHS, the Department of Health has a duty to enforce its guidelines on gland collection to all those responsible in the mortuaries. The fact that several mortuary workers in the South-east were not told of these guidelines lays the blame at the Department's door. What are guidelines for if they are not to be issued to the workers? Surely pursuing legal action for a compensation fund for those who are going to suffer from CJD is not an un-Christian thing to do. I am a Christian, but feel that I am taking action for compensation for all of us now at risk of contracting CJD, and not just for financial reasons for myself.

Yours sincerely,

ALISON FODEN

Isle of Iona, Argyll

18 August