Oral Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Debate between Nick de Bois and Yasmin Qureshi

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend about the cover-up.

We have recently discovered another document in the Kew archive: a letter from the 1960s about the minutes of a meeting of the General Medical Services Committee, in which Dr Inman was involved. It says that there was worry about a request by the Committee on Safety of Medicines that doctors should be monitoring adverse reactions to medication. Doctors were a bit concerned about that in case they might be liable for negligence actions. The minutes say that doctors should stop recording adverse reactions, and, even more significantly, that those who have recorded any such evidence should have it destroyed. That fits in with the constituents, including mine, who have said that when they, as parents, have gone to their doctors to get their records, they are somehow mysteriously missing.

A British medical director of British-based Schering Chemicals, which is a subsidiary of Bayer Schering in Berlin, urged the withdrawal of the hormone pregnancy drug primodos in 1969, but his plea was rejected by the company. In the same year, the author of a survey for the Royal College of General Practitioners also recommended the withdrawal of the drug, but he, too, was turned down. Until this day, Bayer has refused to take any responsibility.

Jason Farrell, the Sky News reporter I mentioned, has met the statistician, Dennis Cooke, who was contracted by Schering in the ’60s. In a report, of which he still has copies, he compared the increase in the sales of primodos with the number of recorded deformities in newborns, which, he says,

“show a rather alarming direct and strong correlation.”

Schering stopped promoting primodos in 1970, and prescriptions fell from 120,000 in that year to 7,000 by 1977, when it was withdrawn. National statistics show that birth deformities declined during that period as well.

Another person I want to allude to is Professor Briggs. Many times, whenever it has been contacted about this, Bayer has referred to the court case of 1982. It is important to explain to the House that the damage claims brought by the victims were discontinued in the 1980s because some of the medical witnesses defected to the defendants, Schering Chemicals, so the case had to be withdrawn. Some of the victims say that the so-called experts who went over to the Schering side had an interesting story. One of those was Professor Briggs. Some years after the case collapsed, The Sunday Times published an interview with Professor Briggs by Brian Deer, a journalist, in which he accepts that he had in the past “fabricated” studies and carried out

“scientific fraud on a large scale”.

That is on the internet and can be read by anyone.

On a CD that has been kept under lock and key—there is an injunction on it—Professor Briggs is heard confessing:

“Difficulties would be encountered if doubts expressed about hormone pregnancy tests were made public. These were exactly the same hormones as the contraceptive pill and would have cast doubt on the safety of hormones which would extend doubt on the safety of the Pill. This would have a major influence on worldwide family planning which could be a real human disaster. It could cause panic among millions of women worldwide which could result in thousands of pregnancies.”

Later he claims:

“Drugs such as these would never be allowed to be on the Market today, given what we ‘now know’ and following what we know about Potential Hazards to the developing Foetus.”

Those comments were made in a documentary called “The Primodos Affair”, which has never been aired because Schering took out an injunction. Why did it do that? What did it have to hide?

There is further curious evidence regarding other witnesses. Dr Smithills approached a drug company for which he was doing research work on the drug Debendox. He suggested that he would approve the drug and that a funded research project would be an appropriate reward. Dr Inman opened a research centre soon after the case, after he left the Committee on Safety of Medicines. And guess what? Professor Briggs also opened a research centre in Australia soon after the case.

I have no hesitation in saying that those witnesses were bought off by Schering. It is amazing how all of them ended up opening research centres, which, as everybody knows, costs money.

Obviously, the situation is not this Government’s fault, but no Government have taken action over the years. Given the weight of evidence, why did the regulators not warn the doctors? According to internal correspondence from the Committee on Safety of Medicines, it admits that it has

“no defence for the 8 year delay”.

Interestingly, the authorities in Sweden, Finland, Germany, the USA, Australia, Ireland and Holland issued warnings and took action on the drug as early as 1970, five years before any warning was issued in the UK, despite the fact that the first group that knew about the problem was the Committee on Safety of Medicines.

One of the things thrown at the victims is the claim that there is no link, but there is a link: so many statistics show a correlation and so many doctors saw what happened. There seems to have been a complete failure on the part of the body appointed to monitor medication. It could have taken action but failed to do so, so the Government of the day were culpable.

Interestingly, Schering discontinued the product and stopped using it for pregnancy tests. Surely that suggests that something was wrong with the drug; otherwise, it would not have been taken off the market.

It is said that justice delayed is justice denied. We have found out in recent years about cover-ups in relation to so many tragedies, including thalidomide, Hillsborough and the sexual abuse of children in care homes and institutions. The 1960s and ’70s seem to have been an era of cover-ups, wherever we look, and victims in those cases campaigned for years and years to get an inquiry. The case under discussion has been going on for 30 to 40 years. Is it not about time for the victims—there are thousands of them—to get the justice they deserve?

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on the work she has done to secure this debate and her work with campaigners. She is drawing a contrast between this and previous cover-ups. To support her point, I should like to point out that, in this new age of transparency, we seek not a public inquiry but an independent panel, which should be well within the Government’s gift.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I thank him for all the support that he has given me and all the work that he has carried out in the campaign on behalf of his constituents.

I want to end by paying tribute to Marie Lyon, who has already been mentioned, and the victims association for all its work, as well as hon. Members who have given their help and assistance. I want to name-check two hon. Members who, because of their positions, are not able to speak in the debate: one is my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), who is in the Chamber; and the other is the Minister for Government Policy and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin), who is not here today.