BERLIN: Western drug companies tested pharmaceuticals on more than 50,000 people in the former communist East Germany, often without the knowledge of patients, several of whom died, the Spiegel news weekly reported yesterday.
Some 600 clinical trials were carried out in more than 50 hospitals until the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the report said, citing previously unpublished documents of the East German health ministry, pharmaceutical institute and Stasi secret police.
Many major drug companies from Germany, Switzerland and the United States took part, offering up to 800,000 West German marks (about ¤400,000 at today’s exchange rate) per study, a boost for East Germany’s underfunded health care system, Spiegel said.
Records showed that two people died in East Berlin during testing of Trental, a drug that improves blood circulation developed by then West German company Hoechst, which has since merged with Sanofi, the report said.
Two more patients died in a lung clinic near the city of Magdeburg in tests of a blood pressure drug made by Sandoz, which has since been taken over by the Swiss group Novartis, according to Spiegel.
Patients were often not fully informed about the possible risks and side effects, the weekly said. Other tests involved preterm infants and a group of alcoholics
Russian boy, 7, kills brother, 4
MOSCOW: A 7-year-old Russian boy told investigators he had shot and killed his 4-year-old brother by accident with their grandfather’s rifle yesterday, law enforcement authorities said.
The boy said he and his brother had found the gun under a bed in their grandparents’ house in the Siberian town of Bukachacha and were playing with it on the porch while the adults slept, the federal Investigative Committee said.
The boy said he accidentally pulled the trigger while trying to take the gun out of his younger brother’s hands, the committee said. Authorities earlier said they suspected someone had shot the younger boy from outside the enclosed porch.
The Investigative Committee said authorities would open a criminal case, apparently against the grandfather, on suspicion of illegal possession of an unregistered rifle.
Agencies
