Teacher sues Bayer over Duogynon

Teacher sued Bayer for hormone drug Duogynon.

(06.06.2010) The pharmaceutical company Bayer is threatened with potential claims for damages due to the hormone preparation "Duogynon". A teacher sued the pharmaceutical company "Bayer", possibly threaten the company, according to media reports, even more complaints.

A Bavarian teacher sued the pharmaceutical company "Bayer Schering Pharma AG" due to the hormone preparation "Duogynon". The pharmaceutical company "Schering" was acquired four years ago by the Bayer Group. The plaintiff considers himself "badly damaged" by the drug and filed a "claim for information". The man wants to get the company to disclose his internal documents. According to the magazine "The Mirror", the lawsuit would be a "pilot", as more potential victims of the lawsuit want to join.

The hormone supplement was prescribed to women in the 1970s so they could test if they were pregnant. Duogynon was used as an injection and dragee form as a pregnancy test, but also for the treatment of missed menstrual bleeding. According to "Spiegel" about 1000 women in the following years would have children with disabilities in the world. Thus, the children showed disabilities such as water head, open stomach, open back up to malformations of the internal organs. In September 1980, the company informed Schering that the treatment of secondary amenorrhea by Duogynon was medically outdated. In October of the same year, the company ceased manufacturing Duogynon.

Although a preliminary investigation was stopped and a civil suit against the company failed (AZ: 1 Wi Js 329/78), today's grown-up children want to clarify whether a connection between the disabilities that have occurred and the capture of "Duogynon" duration. The teacher from Bavaria belongs to the then born children and is now 34 years old. The plaintiff suffers from an artificial urinary output.

The company "Bayer Schering" rejects all possible claims for damages. The group denies a possible connection between the intake of the drug and the then occurring disabilities of the children. A spokesman for the company said: "A causality between the malformations and the product could not be determined." Nothing has changed in this state of knowledge until today ". There was no intention of commenting on the current lawsuit because it was not yet available. (Sb)

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