Oral Hormone Pregnancy Tests

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Thursday 23rd October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

My constituent, the wonderful campaigner Marie Lyon, has doggedly pursued this issue, and I think we can fairly say that that has led to my hon. Friend getting this excellent debate. I am aware of two constituents who have been affected by this drug. Mr and Mrs Tilley’s son Stephen was born with brain damage, and when they asked for Mrs Tilley’s medical records, they found they were missing. This is not the first case I have heard about of records being lost or destroyed in this regard. Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am about this apparent cover-up?

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank all the hon. Members who have spoken in the debate today. I particularly thank all the members of the all-party parliamentary group on primodos, all those who signed my early-day motion and everybody who participated in the petition that was presented to No. 10 Downing street. I also thank the association.

I should also mention a couple of other people. My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned Valerie Williams, who campaigned on this issue many years ago. When my constituent Nichola Williams first contacted me I went to see her at her home. At first glance, she appeared to have nothing wrong with her. It was only on talking to her that I found out about all the internal damage that she has.

The campaigners have found a raft of documents that I went through with my researcher and my office. We thought that something was very wrong and that there had been a miscarriage of justice, and that is why we started the campaign. I am glad that after two years we have finally received an undertaking from the Government that they will appoint an independent panel to look not only at the documents held by the Department, but all the documents that we have. We have a lot of information that we think shows a medical and legal cover-up.

On the causal link, the Minister said that the victims’ association will be consulted. Every lady who took primodos said that it was the pregnancy during which they had taken that drug that resulted in abnormalities in children. Other children those same ladies went on to have were perfectly healthy—in those pregnancies, no primodos had been taken. This is important research and it needs to be looked at.

The Minister said that the numbers of victims may not be in the thousands. It is fair to say that as the campaign has gone on over the past two years, with limited coverage and publicity in my local newspaper and in the national media, I have received letters and e-mails from more and more people coming forward and saying, “This is what happened to us.” I think there are a lot more people out there. Perhaps this is something the independent panel can look at, because we think there are many more people who are unaware of what is happening.

I thank the Minister for what he has said at the Dispatch Box, which is that he will release and look at the documents, set up an independent panel, work with the victims’ association and also look at our documents.

[George Freeman]

What we might do is set up an expert working group and invite one or two patients’ representatives from the victims’ association to sit on it. If hon. Members are happy, I will write around with a suggestion for how we might do that. I want to just remind the House that those from the Medicines for Women's Health Expert Advisory Group are independent experts in their field. They currently advise the Commission on Human Medicines on issues relating to medicines for women’s health. All members must fully disclose any conflicts of interest and are disbarred from any discussions of issues where they hold a personal interest. I think the House can therefore be confident that these are independent experts. If we set up an expert working group and have patients on it, that should give the House confidence that victims’ and patients’ voices will be properly heard.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the Minister for that reassurance. I am sure that those from the victims’ association who are watching the debate will be reassured too.

I thank the Minister again for what the Department has offered to do. We hope it will be done speedily and that there will be a resolution. As we know, many of the victims are now approaching their 40s and 50s. Their medical conditions are worsening and some have died. It is important that they understand what has been happening. They have never, ever asked for this—they have never even suggested it—but perhaps after the investigation we could think about some kind of financial settlement or compensation. As I have said, this is something that I am saying. I think that that would be only fair after all their suffering.

Finally, I have spoken in the Chamber from time to time, but today is the first time that, when I came into the Chamber, I got a little butterfly in my stomach. It reminded me of when I was a barrister before I became a Member of Parliament. I would have that feeling when going into court for a special case of particular significance. When I came in I almost felt that I was going to present a legal case to ask for—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Does the hon. Lady intend to talk her own proposal out? If not, perhaps she should allow me to put the question now.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that children were born with serious deformities due to hormone pregnancy test drugs taken by expectant mothers between 1953 and 1975; also notes with concern that as the surviving victims enter their forties and fifties many of them face a host of new problems as their bodies continue to suffer; further notes that no official warnings were issued about these drugs until eight years after the first reports indicated possible dangers; further notes that some doctors continued to prescribe the drugs for pregnant women after official warnings from the Committee on Safety of Medicines; calls on the Secretary of State for Health to fully disclose all documents relating to the use of Hormone Pregnancy Tests held by the Department from the period between 1953 and 1978; and also calls on the Secretary of State to set up an independent panel to examine these documents.