Damning review of ‘birth defects’ drug slates failure to act

A PREGNANCY drug which campaigners claim caused birth defects was criticised by a review board yesterday.

Primodos was taken by more than a million women in the 1960s and 1970s to check whether they were pregnant.

But many believe it caused miscarriages and malformations in hundreds of babies.

Primodos was removed from the market in 1977, 10 years after claims of harm first emerged. Its German manufacturer has always denied it caused birth defects.

Campaigners who have fought for 50 years against the drug were “lost for words” after the damning review agreed it should have been withdrawn far sooner.

The evidence was considered by the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, led by Baroness Cumberlege.

Her report, entitled First Do No Harm, said: “It is our view that, from 1967, hormone pregnancy tests should no longer have been available.

“The expression of any concern about risk should have led to action by the regulator.

“Failure to act meant that women were exposed unnecessarily to a potential risk.”

Baroness Cumberlege said: “I have never encountered anything like this – the intensity of suffering experienced by so many families and the fact that they have endured it for decades. Much of this suffering was avoidable, caused and compounded by failings in the health system itself. We owe it to the victims of these failings to do better.”

The report said the Government should issue a “fulsome apology” to families and meet the cost of support for those who said they had suffered.

Marie Lyon, pictured, chair of the Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, said: “It is overwhelming that after a 53-year battle to expose the truth about HPTs, an independent report has exposed the evidence about oral hormone pregnancy tests. “This is a result we could only dream of, to expose the truth about the life-changing and heart-breaking effect of these drugs. I am lost for words.”

Health minister Nadine Dorries said: “I want to pay tribute to the patients and families.

“I am determined to make the changes needed to protect women in the future.”