Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
‘Lost decade’ in ending hormone pregnancy tests
Report: Mums exposed unnecessarily to potential risk ‘I felt like a failure as a woman’
HORMONE pregnancy tests linked to miscarriages and disabilities in babies should have been axed 10 years sooner, a review has concluded.
A 1967 report found a possible link with spina bifida but the tests, including the brand Primodos, were not fully withdrawn until 1978.
It is still not known how many women used them – but the Association For Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests estimates it was around 1.3 million.
In addition to spina bifida, the test are linked with limb defects, congenital heart defects and developmental and learning problems.
The Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review
JO Moreno was 21 when she told her GP she thought she was pregnant and was given Primodos.
When she had baby Nicola, her daughter had “the liver of a man who had drunk rum for 50 years”.
Nicola died in 1971 after suffering organ failure shortly after her first birthday. Jo said: “The
first substantive scientific report on Primodos in 1967 was sufficient to justify withdrawal of Primodos and other HPTS from the market.”
In the 1950s and early 1960s, the NHS provided pregnancy tests – but only for women with a pressing medical need for a diagnosis.
HPTS were used from 1950 and contained synthetic versions of the hormones progesterone and estrogen. Combinations of them are used daily by millions of women for last time I nursed her I knew how ill she was and the nurse prized her from my hands as she was screaming ‘Mummy’. I could still hear her screaming that in my nightmares for decades.”
Jo, 71, from Devon, said: “We divorced because we couldn’t cope. He blamed me and the doctors blamed me. I felt a failure as a woman.”
contraception, as the pill. But campaigners said Primodos tablets were 40 times as strong as the pill.
Charlotte Fensome, whose brother Steven has severe epilepsy, said: “Every victim of Primodos is a personal tragedy.
“My mother was given Primodos and my brother was born with severe brain damage. It affects the whole family every day.”