Yes. The commission of investigation were of the opinion that outside of a few medics, no one gave a damn about high infant mortality rates. This is a mistaken view due to a lack of medical knowledge on behalf of the commission of investigation. Had they any knowledge of medicine or science, they would have looked up the current scientific literature.
Science, noting the correlation between poverty and high infant mortality rates — but only in recent decades —has established a causal link between poverty and high rates of infant mortality. Had the commission been aware of such evidence, they would not have made so many elementary errors.
Paragraph 5.7 states.
Dublin experienced a long and severe epidemic of gastroenteritis. In 1941 a total of 1,293 infants died from the disease in the Dublin County Borough. The epidemic continued until 1944, ‘before anyone kicked up a row about it’.
The commission’s conclusion is embarrassingly incorrect. Concerns about enteritis were widely discussed in newspapers at the time, and public health authorities actively investigated its causes. It appears the researcher relied on an unfounded assumption, presuming there was no evidence to contradict it and that it would go unchallenged. It did until now!
Report in Irish Independent, Saturday 13th June 1942
