[House of Commons] Primodos

11th December 2012
Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Testing.

Speech – House of Commons

My name is Valerie Williams, I am here today as a Mother of a Primdos victims and a member of the Association for Children damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Testing.

As a mother I would have been prosecuted in a court of law if I had knowingly taken any drugs which could harm my unborn child. Yet Schering/Bayer have never been prosecuted for supplying Primodos, despite medical evidence being available which highlighted grave concerns. These were expressed by both the medical profession and Schering’s own Scientists. Professor Briggs, Schering’s own Medical Director in the UK subsidiary company, who urged their parent company in Berlin to withdraw Primodos due to damaging medical reports. This same doctor, Professor Briggs was exposed by The Times in 1986 for research studies he never undertook. Allowing other’s to write up reports for him and inventing an university in Australia to write up research studies on Beagles tested for the Pill – even though there were no Beagles in Australia!

Where is the logic when a drug company can use the same chemical compound to abort a baby, or to prevent a baby, but in Primodos there was a much higher dose of the same Norestherine drug used to diagnose a pregnancy. Unborn babies were sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed with no compassion or morals to the unborn foetus.
This is all the more abhorrent, when we consider there was no medical requirement for Primodos to determine a Pregnancy. Marketing Primodos merely increased millions in profits for the drug company.

One question which needs to be answered ‘Why were Twenty five thousands boxes of Primodos supplied to Doctors, free of charge, with the request to “Trial” the drug, when there was no medical reason for this. All it did was to free up time for Doctors, as it negated the need for a pelvic examination, or a urine test. It was designed to be a quick pregnancy test, confirmed in their promotion leaflet to say it would not harm the unborn baby. As mothers we were told by our GP’s if we did not come on a period then we were pregnant. In fact many mothers did bleed for a short time after taking Primodos.

Why are there many victims today without any trace of Primodos on their medical notes? What happened over thirty, forty years ago to their medical records. Who took the decision to erase these important medical dates from victims notes.

At Kew Archives in 2012 I found the following documents on Schering/Bayer results on their “rat Study” undertaken in 1961. It took until 1969 before they sent this warning letter to the Committee for Safety and Medicine. This letter specifically stated that Primdos should be removed from the market, due to the high incidence of abortion rates in their “Rat Studies”.

Our Government have consistently denied the existence of this warning letter. I have the copy here verifying the existence of this warning, and as a result of this neglect, the suffering to our victims still continue today

– many live with terrible injuries within a cloud of pain, deformities, and anxieties with health doubts for their remainder of their lives. Families still struggle to cope with the loss of their babies who did not survive these potent pills without evidence. Parents should never have witness their children dying before them, which happened in the case of Primodos.
If the Committee of Safety and Medicines in 1969 had taken this warning notice from Schering Chemical seriously and took Primodos off the market, then those conceived after this date would be living today as you and I have been given the honour to live a normal life.

So today we ask you consider what you have heard by joining us to open up the tarnished history of abuse, medical and legal fraud, with negligence from Schering Chemical and our own government. This same government who have never commented on why their own Senior Medical Officer, Dr. William Inman, at The Committee and Safety of Medicines, crossed ranks to Schering Chemical, by yes, writing a Supplementary report for the drug company, whilst in his capacity as a civil servant employed by the UK government. His name is on Peter Weitzman’s- Barrister’s legal report prior to the trial in 1982 which I have here a copy today.

Is it not time to say the light has now gone out, and is it now time for those guilty of negligence to the victims of Primodos, to come on in from the cold to face your demons, by recognising the stamp of Primodos, is engraved on the victims bodies. This is similar to the victims of Auschwitz in Bayer/Schering’s role with the IG Farben Cartel, who rebuilt, financed and used their own scientists to experiment on prisoners for all hormone products as we know today.

I ask you here today to reflect on the bond of love and care you have with your own children. What would you do if your lives had been affected as our lives have been. Think of the many parents who were denied the opportunity to see, to hear, to touch or to smell or cuddle their children. How would you feel if you were in our place? Our babies were struck down by a toxic dose of chemicals when there was a safer urine test for determining a pregnancy.

Finally, I would like to say some of the victims here today would only be too happy to talk to you about the shattering effect Primodos has had on their lives. The victims fighting their giants who used manipulation, and a web of deceit buried deep within their chambers of secrecy to deny the truth to the victims.

Thank you.

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