Nexus - 0209 - New Times Magazine-pages

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names. The many shocking findings of Dr. Olle Hansson's study include the disclosure of Ciba-Geigy's own research protocols, dated as far back as June 19, 1939, showing that the Swiss researchers managed to poison a goodly number of animals, who were seized by violent convulsions and respiratory difficulties as soon as they were made to swallow Oxychinol, and most of them finally met painful death. In spite of these results, which were kept secret, Ciba-Geigy proceed- ed to market its dangerous drug world-side, limiting itself to publishing a waming in its accompanying leaflets to the effect that the drug should not be administered to house pets. What does this prove? Clearly, that the researchers themselves do not believe in the validity of animal tests in respect to human beings. The DES Case Slaughter of the Innocent related in some detail the Stilboestrol case. The full scientific name for the drug is Diethylstilboestrol, but it is com- monly known as DES in the United States. The prototype of all syn- thetic oestrogens (female sex hormones), it was developed in 1939, test- ed without adverse effects on animals for years, but then it was sudden- ly discovered to have caused cancer in girls whose mothers had been prescribed this "miracle drug" by their doctors during pregnancy, as DES passes through the placental barrier and can trigger a cancer in the fetus. But why had this drug been administered to pregnant women in the first place? Doesn't every drug taken during pregnancy hold a danger? Clearly, not to the knowledge of “researchers” raised in the false belief that what they see in animals applies to man as well. And in fact they had prescribed DES to their patients for the very reason that they were pregnant: the drug was touted to insure a safe pregnancy. After DES had turned out to be the first drug that the medical confra- ternity itself had recognised as being responsible for creating a new type of cancer in human beings, animal test with DES were started over again, and again with no results: the test animals did not develop can- cer. Dr. Robert W. Miller of the National Cancer Institute of Bethseda, Md., who in 1973 wrote the official warning hastily published by Geneva's WHO, revealed in that paper: “Experimental animal studies: There was no correlation between the types of tumours obtained in experimental models (ie labora- tory animal - H.R.) and types of childhood cancer." Dr. Miller either lacked the wisdom to draw the conclusion that ani- mal experimentation had to be discarded as tragically misleading after that, or he lacked the courage to acknowledge it, which is more likely, for he and thousands of Bethesda co-workers live from animal experi- ments, since they don't know any other way of doing research or, per- haps, of earning a living. In fact, all Dr. Miller had to offer in his paper was to recommend an intensification of such experiments, even though the cases he had reported had developed after a latency period of 14 to 22 years. The N.Y. Times of July 17, 1979 had an article titled "Woman Wins Suit in DES Case" which began: In a groundbreaking verdict rendered yesterday in the State Supreme Court in the Bronx, a jury decided that a pharmaceutical company must pay $500,000 in damages to a woman for cancer caused by DES, a drug given to her mother to prevent miscar- riages... The plaintiff was identified as Joyce Bichler, a 25 year old social worker, and the manufacturer sentenced to pay up was Ely Lilly & Co. On August 26, 1979, another article in the N.Y. Times was titled "A Woman Who Said DES Caused a Cancer Is Awarded $800,000." The woman: 26 year old Anne Needham. The manufacturer liable for the damage, White Laboratories of Kenilworth, J.J., was meanwhile taken over by Schering-Plough Corporation. The article concluded: During the trial, Mr Charfoos (the plaintiff's attorney - H.R.) said Continued from page 24 Continued on page 65 AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 1992