Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Ed Davey Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)]

I am here because of my constituent Sue Illsley, who took this drug when she was a teenager. She believes that her daughter has suffered disabilities as a result, and that has obviously affected her whole life. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) and the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), and I hope that the Minister will read their speeches, because they made some powerful points about the evidence, and he needs to ensure that his officials look into that in detail.

I want to use some evidence given to me by Jason Farrell, an investigative news reporter at Sky News who has done a fantastic job over many years to bring this matter to light. I particularly want to refer to documents that he found in the national archives in Berlin, which include minutes of meetings between the company, Schering Chemicals Ltd, its lawyer and a scientific adviser. I will read extracts from the minutes of meetings held on 20 and 21 December 1977 at the Goldsmith Building, Temple, London, where Schering was getting the legal advice of a Mr Clothier, QC. The extracts will show that there has been a cover-up over years, and it has to stop here, today. We have to pass this motion and the Government have to act—no more cover-ups. The minutes state:

“Mr Clothier then went on to the letter written by Dr. Pitchford and Dr. Bye to Dr. Friebel in Germany (6th June 1968) requesting that… it was important that something more must be done. Mr Clothier went into this letter in some detail and suggested that it would be dynamite in the hands of the claimants.”

Another memo from Dr Pitchford to Dr Friebel, dated 22 July 1969, was raised by Mr Clothier. This memo was a summary of events and stated that Schering should abandon the product for use in pregnancy testing. Mr Clothier wished to know what had been done on the Schering side in response. No answer.

Mr Clothier felt, if the case were tried to the end by a judge, the chances were that the company would be found to be in neglect of its duty. Clothier stated that there seemed to be a 5:1 chance that, if there were a malformation in a child and the mother took Primodos while pregnant, it was the fault of the drug.

Page 7 of the memo states that Mr Clothier told Schering

“there were 2 alternatives open to us—one is to establish a voluntary scheme of compensation in which a justifiable claim will be given compensation without proof of liability but simply accepting moral responsibility.”

The other alternative was to take such claims to court.

Dr Detering of Schering said he was

“hesitant in establishing a scheme as the product is marketed world-wide. If we introduce this scheme in one country, we should introduce it in other countries.”

Back in 1977, people were trying to escape their moral responsibilities.

Other prime issues were raised in this minute but, because of the time, I will go on to the other minute, which is the report of a meeting with Professor Tuchmann-Duplessis, a scientist from Paris, on 16 February 1978. The minute is dated the next day and states:

“The meeting…was arranged by Dr. Detering in Berlin in order to determine Professor Tuchmann’s general opinion on the validity and quality of the work that had been carried out on Primodos.”

According to this minute, the first question posed was:

“Did we, as a Company, carry out all the studies that we were supposed to?”

The answer was:

“In Professor Tuchmann’s opinion we should have done much more. He expressed the view that after discovering that a certain dose was embryolethal in rabbits and in rats, we should have certainly carried out teratological studies in primates in 1968.”

This is a scandal. They knew. The lawyers were saying that the company would be liable, and that it would be found guilty in a court and would have to pay.

Why does this continue? We have heard from many hon. Members today about constituents across our country whose lives have been blighted by this. Why continue? The Minister has to stand up to the official briefings he is getting. He has to stand up to the nonsense of continued obfuscation and cover-up. Surely he must stand up and say at the Dispatch Box that he will support the motion, and that the Government will set up a judicial inquiry as soon as possible.

[Several hon. Members rose—]