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6 février, 2008 16:08
Trial Opens in Growth Hormone Deaths
Doctors, Pharmacists Stand Trial in France for Growth Hormone Deaths
Doctor Jean-Claude Job, 85, arrives at a Paris court house, Wednesday Feb. 6, 2008. Dr Job was the president of an association that oversaw the collection hormones that resulted in the death of 100 young people. Seven doctors and pharmacists went on trial Wednesday in Paris, for the deaths of more than 100 young people who died of a brain-destroying disease after being treated with tainted human growth hormones. From the 1960s through the 1980s, hormones collected from the pituitary glands of human corpses were used to treat thousands of French children whose growth was stunted because of a deficiency in the secretion of growth hormone. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)
By PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
PARIS
Seven doctors and pharmacists went on trial Wednesday for the deaths of more than 100 young people who contracted a brain-destroying disease after being treated with tainted human growth hormones.
Hundreds packed the courtroom where the defendants faced charges, including manslaughter and deception, following a more than 16-year investigation into the deaths of at least 110 young people from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD.
From the 1960s through the 1980s, hormones collected from the pituitary glands of human corpses were used to treat thousands of French children whose growth was stunted because of a deficiency in the secretion of growth hormone.
The program ended in 1988 after contaminated growth hormones were linked to CJD three years after the United States and Britain stopped the practice because patients had contracted the fatal brain disease.
The case stems from a single complaint in December 1991 by a woman whose 15-year-old son was among those who died after getting the treatments. The case snowballed as others filed complaints.
"It is not yet victory," said Jeanne Goerrian, president of the Growth Hormones Victims Association. Her son died in 1994. "We hope that justice will prevail for the memory of our children."
Investigators raised questions about shoddy collection methods, noting that untrained workers were sent to extract the hormones, as well as the methods used in preparing the hormones for medical use.
Prosecutors say that by 1985, scientists were warning of a link between the hormones and CJD, and that the French program should have been halted earlier.
"Twenty years ago, what was the real degree of knowledge? They acted with the knowledge of the time," said Benoit Chabert, lawyer for defendant Henri Cerceau, former director of the central pharmacy for the Paris city hospital network.
Treatment since 1988 has been done through synthetic hormones.
If convicted, six defendants face up to four years in prison. One, Pierre Dray, a pharmacology professor at the Pasteur Institute, also is charged with corruption, and faces 10 years if convicted.
The trial is expected last through May 31.
A variant of CJD also has been linked to infected beef from cattle with mad cow disease.
