Bitter pill

CEMBER 18, the trial ever to take in W Germany After two-and-a-half years of legal wrangling, involving an estimated 400,000 yards of tape-recorded material, 283 days of hearings' and an expenditure of more than £700,000, the trial of seven executives of the firm Chemie Gruenenthal - W German manufacturers and distributors of the drug Thalidomide-was called off.

Despite overwhelming évidence that the drug was responsible for the deaths of over 6,000 deformed children, the charges have haan dronned The company was accused of causing bodily harm through neglect and with intent and negligent killing and violation of the drug laws.

Now drug manufacturers everywhere will breathe a sigh of relief.

They can afford to smile because the proceedings ended thanks to the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, under IMPERIALISM AND ITS:

TROTSKY Available from New Park Publications 186A Clapham High St.. SWi (would like information about Address WHAT IS THE AND WHERE IS IT GOING? which a defendant has the right to expect a verdict within a reasonable length of time!

The bosses of Chemie Gruenenthal are now free to go about their profitable business, having graciously placed some £16 million at the disposal of the 2,600 Thalidomide children in Germany.

The publicity given to the case in the early 1960s and subsequent court reports revealed the grim reality of the workings of drug research and marketing for private profit.

Chemie Gruenenthal began after the Second World War as small pharmaceutical firm under the leadership of Hermann Wirtz, a member of an established family in the detergent and cosmetic business.

The head of Gruenenthal's research laboratory trom 1940 was Dr Heinrich Muckter, a qualified chemist and doctor, who had worked under the German Many s contrul during une war A nmrro nantanl dumina tha urno at the Institute tor Typhus and Virus Research at Krakow in Experiments carried out at the Institute led to the deaths of a umber oi prisoners from the inamous Buchenwald concentration camp.

However, the Polish authorities commented: 'Muckter was loyal to his German superiors, but committed criminal agains the Polish population, acts Price 13s 8d post incl was Muckter, the discoverer of Thalidomide, who resisted any attempts to withdraw the drug from the market.

Thalidomide was discovered in 1954 as a by-product of research into drugs for reducing obesity and lessening the risk of heart disease.

Money Muckter quickly latched on to the new substance-labelled K17 —as a possible money-spinner in the expanding market for sedatives. The incentive was considerable.

Muckter's contract ensured him 1 per cent of the. company's turnover and at its peak the drue's subsequent success netted him a weekly income of £600. _ Muckter and two associates, DI Herbert Keller and Dr Wilhelm Kunz, carried out a series of tests on animals. The results seemed promising.

The drug apparently could be taken in large doses without death resulting-a striking advantage over barbiturates, with their unpleasant side-effects and dangers of suicide.

In 1965, commenting on the tests, Swedish scientists said :

bitter PAGE TWO scientific BY ments in the toxicity tests was far too small; that because of this; a low. frequency of side enough these are impo dart tor effects could a sedative like Thalidomide and very necessary if the substance is to be declared unpoisonous.

"The conventional toxicological and pharmacological tests are most unsatisfactory. Kunz, Keller and Muckter openly, tried hoodwink the reader by creating a false impression of the scope of their tests.' However, Gruenenthal pressed ahead with clinical trials under the supervision of nine experts, who discussed their findings at the end of 1955.

Four were in favour of the drug, four uncertain and one against — hardly an encouraging outcome. In addition, the main supporter—Dr Hermann Junghad already detected serious side came in 1958, when the drug was claimed to be safe for use by pregnant women. This was 'based' on tests carried out by Di Augustin Peter Blasiu at his private Munich nursing home.

These groups were used by the ADVANCE NOTICE effects of dizziness, constipation, lowering of temperature, shivering and buzzing in the ears.

Nevertheless, in his opinion, 'we have in K17 a substance which at the correct dose level has no undesirable side effects'.

Further tests were carried out and again serious side effects were detected. Muckter and, his employers were, therefore, well aware of at least some of the drug's harmful powers.

On Tuesday, October 1, 1957, amid a blaze of publicity, the drug : was launched on to the market under the brand name Contergan. Advertisements appeared in 50 medical journals and letters were sent out to At the centre of the sales campaign was the claim, repeated time and again, that the drug was completely non-poisonous and safe.

Tremendous

success This was the basis of its tremendous success. It was exported to nearly 50 countriés throughout the world and manufactured under licence under 51 brand names.

In W Germany, the drug could be bought freely across the counter, while in Britain a prescription was needed.

It was estimated that a million German people alone took Contergan and world sales reached 20 million pills a month.

Sales of the drug finally accounted for half of Gruenenthal's turnover !

Blasiu, who was retained by the company, later said that the drug was used only on nursing mothers and operation cases and never given to pregnant women. He denied knowledge of the use of his name for advertising purposes.

By 1959 sales were booming and an increasing number of complaints trickled into the company's headquarters, linking the use of the drug with a nervous disorder called peripheral neuritis. The symptoms had in all essentials been detected by Dr Jung in 1955.

Gruenenthal's response to growing criticism was either dismissive or hostile.

At this stage, the worst fate that was envisaged was the placing of the drug on prescription. In April 1960, the sales department reported :

•From our side everything must be done to avoid putting it on prescription, since already a subamount of our turnover comes from over-the-counter sales.' This was after medical evidence that Contergan had caused nerve damage 'of the most severe kind'.

Faced with a serious threat to profits, the company pulled out the stops in an effort to stem thé tide.

Influence was used to delay the publication of unfavourable reports while strenuous efforts were made to publicize "successful' But time was running out. In damage that followed prolonged use of Contergan was permanent.

By the summer of that year, the drug was put on prescription by health authorities in a number of German provinces, and sales began to drop.

But the worst was come.

Severe malformations By November 1961, it was clear from independent sources in Australia and W Germany that there was a link between the use of Contergan in pregnancy and the sudden rash of babies being born with severe formations.

Thureday, December 31, 19701 The previously rare sight of babies born with flipper-like limbs iwas, becoming; a common occurrence. i. The; + frequency of such a tragic event was estimated at less than one in every 100,000 births. of every In 19601,000 infants born in between one 'and two Hamburg were deformed.

In W Germany, the main attack on the drug came from Dr Widukind . Lenz (now professor of Human Genetics at Muenster University) who subsequently became the prosecution's main witness at the trial.

The Company tried desperately to discredit Lenz and his evidence, but to no avail.

Muckter was the last of the management to yield. The drug withdrawn and a circular sent out to customers announcing that 'publicity has removed

Young Socialists and All Trades Unions Alliance GREAT NATIONAL RALLY AGAINST TORYISM ATE GI the basis for scientific discussion'.

But the battle had just begun. Gruenenthal was. not admitting publicly that the Company was to blame for the deformed births;

Not until Tanuary 1968 over ten years after the launching of Thalidomide - did the Chief Criminal Court in Aachen, decide that there was sufficient eyidence for a trial The Company threw all its massive resources into the fight spending f2,000 a day on public relations and hiring 18 of the best lawyers in W Germany.

Dr Scriber, a lawyer representing some the plaintiffs, remarked bitterly:

"The defence is manipulating the Press and is admitting proudly. Chemie Gruenenthal is also paying considerable incomes to medical experts and is creating the climate for the pious belief - but not the knowledge -that the defendants are innocent.

'W Germany's pharmaceutical industry, or its lobby, has taken over this task as well. They are increasing their pressure on so-called free independent science and on the free and independent Press.' The drug giants finally won. In each country where manufacturers were brought to trial, there have been no convictions. The settlements have been expensive (sometimes), but the workins of capitalist medicine are once again securely hidden behind a respectable façade.

The Thalidomide case will be dismissed as an 'exception'.

Certainly, a catastrophe of that magnitude is exceptional. What is important is the drive for profit that culminated in disaster.

The proposals of the Tory government to dismantle the National Health Service and to 'encourage'. private medicine can be seen. in context when ' we examine the history of the drug Thalidomide.