GDR patients abused for drug testing

Patients in the former GDR abused for drug trials

04/12/2012

Secret drug tests - a topic that causes goose bumps and the journalists Stefan Hoge and Carsten Opitz on the topic. In her reportage „Test and dead“ show the two, as the former GDR in the late 1980s, has become a central area for pharmaceutical experiments - documented in numerous, previously unpublished records that were found in the basement of the GDR Ministry of Health and a close and methodical cooperation between state bodies To reveal doctors and pharmaceutical companies from the then West. The two journalists not only offer those affected a platform, but also shed light on them „other side“, by providing a background of knowledge of the circumstances at the time by a pharmaceutical historian and an ex-manager of the Hoechst Group.

Medication box brings scandal rolling
The beginning had a number on the box of medications of the electrician Gerhard teacher made: The 60-year-old teacher was admitted in May 1989 with a heart attack in a hospital in Dresden and received a drug, which was praised by the then doctor in the highest tones. Three weeks later, teachers were dismissed, but an improvement did not set in - on the contrary: his condition steadily deteriorated. Nevertheless, he was told by the hospital to suddenly stop taking the pills and return the remains of the clinic. But Teacher kept the remaining medicine and asked his wife to keep it well, in case she needed it too.

Barely a year later, Gerhard Lehrer died, and as if he had had a slight premonition, comes through this pack with the remaining pills gradually a dark chapter of the GDR history to light: Because as a teacher's wife Anneliese by a report by the MDR learns of dangerous drug trials in hospitals in the former GDR, they contacted the transmitter and reported on the case of her husband. And finally, the analysis of the pharmaceutical laboratory of the University of Leipzig sheds light on the dark: The pills that Gerhard Lehrer had received were placebos, drugs without any active ingredient - Teacher had apparently acted as an experimental object, had to take pure pseudo-drugs instead of according to his heart condition to be treated with medication.

With a number on the box of the placebo, the journalists Hoge and Opitz finally become aware of the background of Gerhard Lehrer's fate, because the test, in which the teacher had taken an ignorant part, is documented in files of the GDR's Ministry of Health and shows: Behind the Drug experiment was the pharmaceutical company Hoechst, which, among other things, teachers to the drug „ramipril“ - a drug of the group of ACE inhibitors, which is used for the treatment of high blood pressure and for the prevention against. Apparently, the group had been looking for new areas of application for the successful drug.

Missing goods as a driving force for dubious machinations
As drivers of these experiments, the makers of the documentary identify two developments above all: Firstly, there was reign in the former GDR „Shortages“, which meant that not only everyday things like fruits from far away countries simply did not exist, but also the pharmaceutical sector was not spared, there were quite pharmacies, „[...] which could no longer deliver 20 percent of the preparations, at certain times ", as the pharmaceutical historian Christoph Friedrich of the University of Marburg notes and adds:" And this of course continued in the clinics. "

On the other hand brings in the early 1960s the hitherto largest drug scandal born one whose mothers had taken the sedative drug Contergan - which was finally taken by the company Grünenthal in 1961 from the market. As a consequence of this scandal, the then Western government tightened the conditions for admission to new drugs. Added to this was a new legal basis for pharmaceuticals, which only came into effect in 1978, but from then on patients had to be informed in advance about personal rights and risks in the context of studies.

D-Mark for drug experiments
The new law now presented the pharmaceutical companies with major obstacles: to bring a new drug on the market, they now had to be tested on more subjects than before, more volunteer testers - doctors and patients - had to be found and so proved, among other things former GDR for BRD companies as a suitable location for the necessary pharmaceutical studies.

At the end of the 1970s, journalist Carsten Opitz reports from former Stasi files, doctors in the GDR no longer had to overhear the criticism of the health system on the part of the doctors. In order to remedy this quickly, the Minister of Health of the former GDR, Ludwig Mecklinger, immediately turned to Erich Honecker, who in turn responded immediately by releasing financial state reserves from one day to the next.

Finally, in 1983, according to the historian Prof. Christoph Friedrich of the University of Marburg in a meeting with responsible Central Committee members „set the course for a momentous deal“: At some clinics specifically selected for this purpose, physicians should undertake studies for Western drug companies with drugs that have not yet been approved. In return, the D-mark that was used for this purpose should be used for investments in its own hospitals.

How these deals actually proceeded, the journalists Hoge and Opitz show in their report, it becomes clear, how in meticulous negotiations for money for each successful study was negotiated and how smoothly this trade apparently ran.

Using the example of today's invalid pensioner Hubert Bruchmüller, the filmmakers show the extent of the scandal: "We were not stupid GDR citizens [...], if that is so fixed, you just did it." He was also - at the age of 30 - due to heart problems in a special clinic in Magdeburg and he was also as „Guinea pigs“ abused - this time it was the drug „spirapril“ from Sandoz. As the two journalists can show by the file, died during this experiment until December 1989, six of the 17 patients tested - until the doctors were finally stopped.

End of the experiments only with the fall of the Berlin Wall
Only with the fall of the wall did the era of pharmaceutical experiments in the former GDR end. How much the state has actually earned in each study, will probably never be clarified, because the files from the former Ministry of Health are only partially available.

The journalists came here again and again to their limits in their research - the written consent of the patient remained despite repeated requests in clinics and the aforementioned pharmaceutical companies lost. According to Opitz, however, the French pharmaceutical group had been quite cooperative and have sent some of the test files of Gerhard Lehrer from the acquired Hoechst archive.

But those responsible could not have found each other - neither from the pharmaceutical associations nor from the responsible ministries, supposedly nobody knew about the patient experiments. Only a former East German physician could locate the journalists, who agreed to report something about his commissioned studies, which could be, according to Opitz, that „Most GDR doctors would like to keep their health care as a space free of political and economic constraints.“ (Sb)