Primodos victims demand apology from Bayer / ASM today
CBGnetwork
May 12, 2009
Primodos victims demand apology from Bayer
Bayer Schering shareholder meeting in Duesseldorf today / Schering offered
settlement in the seventies
Karl Murphy from Liverpool and Valerie Williams from London today will speak
at Bayer4s shareholder meeting in Duesseldorf/Germany. They will demand that
the company apologizes to Primodos victims and offers a compensation scheme.
Attending will be Bayer4s board, supervisory board and about 4000
shareholders.
Known as 'the forgotten Thalidomide', Primodos was prescribed as a hormone
pregnancy test in the sixties and seventies. Several thousand children were
left with deformities after their mothers took Primodos. The drug was
produced by the German company Schering which was taken over by the chemical
and pharmaceutical producer Bayer in 2006.
Karl Murphy says in the meeting: My life has been hell from birth,
operation after operation to try to sort out the mess this drug has left me
in. I would like to ask Bayer Schering today, why did you let this drug
carry on being used when you were told that the deformity rate was
increasing? Now that Schering has a new owner, it is the right moment to
take a step towards us. The management has to help the victims who have been
damaged by their actions.
Valerie Williams, founder and former chairman of the ASSOCIATION FOR
CHILDREN DAMAGED BY HORMONE PREGNANCY TESTING, says towards the Bayer board:
I am a mother of a son who suffered multiple abnormalities due to the fact
that I was prescribed Primodos in 1974. When Primodos was first launched,
Schering said that if a woman was pregnant in no way would the foetus be
harmed. I ask you: What proof did you have in order to make such a claim? I
urge the shareholders to unbolt the permanently shut blinkers of this drug
company. Williams was offered a settlement in 1978, four weeks ahead of
founding the ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDREN DAMAGED BY HORMONE PREGNANCY TESTING.
She rejected the offer due to Schering4s condition of confidentiality.
Each Primodos tablet was equivalent to approximately forty contraceptive
pills. Already in 1967 the then Committee on Safety of Drugs was warned by a
doctor - Dr. Isabel Gal - that foetal abnormalities were associated with the
use of hormonal pregnancy testing. In the same year a new and easy method of
confirming pregnancy had become available, measuring the level of hormones
already present in the body by a simple urine test.
Two medical advisors from Schering Chemical Ltd in Britain were disturbed by
Dr. Gals findings and examined the details of Primodos sales throughout the
country. The Sunday Times later obtained a copy of a letter to Schering4s
head office in which the advisors expressed their concern: We must reach a
decision regarding our own product Primodos and its possible relationship to
foetal abnormalities. As manufacturers it is our moral duty to do all
possible to ensure the safety of the preparations which we market. The
letter went on, ethically speaking we are not satisfied that sufficient has
been done to remove suspicion that has been cast upon Primodos to a
sufficient degree, for us to be confident in supporting its continued
availability to pregnant women in this country.
Evidence continued to accumulate and in 1969 a survey by the Royal College
of General Practitioners showed a higher incidence of miscarriages or
natural abortions among women who had taken the pregnancy tests. Dr. Dean,
who led the survey, recommended that Primodos be withdrawn from the market.
Roussel, the French manufacturer of Amenorone Forte, a drug similar to
Primodos, removed it completely from the market as a valid test for
pregnancy that year. However, the warnings were ignored by Schering4s head
office. The management was primarily concerned with commercial gain, wanting
to maintain their monopoly over the birth control pill market. Bayer
Schering is still the world market leader for the contraceptive pill.
Williams and Murphy appear in the Bayer meeting by invitation of the
Coalition against Bayer Dangers, an international network based in Germany
that has been monitoring Bayer for thirty years. Both are available for
interviews.
more information and the complete speeches (after the meeting):
www.cbgnetwork.de/2882.html
contact Karl Murphy: 0044 - 7921262018, Email kc...@blueyonder.co.uk
contact Valerie Williams: 0044 - 77 806 33 999
Coalition against Bayer Dangers: CBGne...@aol.com , www.CBGnetwork.org
Coalition against BAYER Dangers (Germany)
www.CBGnetwork.org
Fax: (+49) 211-333 940 Tel: (+49) 211-333 911
Advisory Board
Prof. Juergen Junginger, designer, Krefeld,
Prof. Dr. Juergen Rochlitz, chemist, former member of the Bundestag,
Burgwald
Wolfram Esche, attorney, Cologne
Dr. Sigrid M|ller, pharmacologist, Bremen
Eva Bulling-Schroeter, member of the Bundestag, Berlin
Prof. Dr. Anton Schneider, biologist, Neubeuern
Dr. Janis Schmelzer, historian, Berlin
Dr. Erika Abczynski, pediatrician, Dormagen