![\"Karen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0022ead8-614.jpg\"\/)
\nKaren Keely has three sons, Harry, Lee, and 26 year old Lorcan, all of whom have been impacted by the drug<\/p>\n
An inquiry has begun into the historical prescribing of an anti-epilepsy drug which can cause birth defects if used during pregnancy.<\/p>\n
The non-statutory inquiry into the use of sodium valproate, sold under the brand name Epilim, is scheduled to last between 12 and 18 months.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that more than 1,000 children have been impacted in Ireland since the 1970s.<\/p>\n
The inquiry, which will be chaired by barrister Br\u00edd O’Flaherty, will be divided into a number of strands.<\/p>\n
The first will be the review phase, which will establish a timeline of the use of the drug, including information on safety and regulation.<\/p>\n
The Department of Health said the inquiry will have responsibility to request documentation from a range of stakeholders and will be obliged to record any difficulties where such requests are refused.<\/p>\n
The second phase will be made up of oral statements from affected families. These sessions will be held in private.<\/p>\n
Other phases will focus on assessing the health services’ current capacity to respond to safety issues related to the use of anti-seizure medications in women.<\/p>\n
The department said necessary data regulations were passed last week in the D\u00e1il and Seanad.<\/p>\n
\nKaren Keely has three sons, Harry, Lee, and 26 year old Lorcan, all of whom have been impacted by the drug<\/p>\n
Families have been campaigning for years for an inquiry to be held and have welcomed the fact that it began today.<\/p>\n
Karen Keely, chairperson of the Organisation Anticonvulsant Syndromes Ireland, has three sons, Harry, 38, Lee, 30, and 26 year old Lorcan, all of whom have been impacted.<\/p>\n
She said: “I’m delighted that we got to this stage, that the it’s actually happening.<\/p>\n
“There are no words, you know, I’m sure I’m not the only one. There are many mothers like me out there.<\/p>\n
“It’s basically ongoing – the search for justice, for answers. [To find out] who knew what and when. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.”<\/p>\n
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill also welcomed the commencement of the inquiry and said its work will also involve developing recommendations regarding the services and supports for those impacted.<\/p>\n
She said a communications campaign will be launched in the coming weeks to raise public awareness of the inquiry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An inquiry has begun into the historical prescribing of an anti-epilepsy drug which can cause birth defects if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[49,48,84,377],"class_list":{"0":"post-15975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}