Irish Times
In conversation with Eoin Burke Kennedy
07/06/2010

IT ALL started with what appeared to be an adverse reaction to a vaccination jab back in 1991. I was working in Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital, and as my job routinely brought me in contact with blood, it was necessary to get inoculated against hepatitis B.

I suppose you could say the vaccine, which was administered in three stages, highlighted an underlying illness. By the time I’d had the third injection, it was obvious something was wrong; my skin had turned completely yellow. I remember being startled at the colour of my eyeballs in the mirror.

I went to my doctor who carried out a series of blood tests, which pointed to a problem with my liver. I was referred to a specialist in Beaumont and taken in for another series of tests, which confirmed I had a condition known as primary biliary cirrhosis, an auto-immune disease which affects the liver.

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