Primodos super-strength hormone tablets were given out by GPs in the 1960s and ’70s
MEET the man who was called a “monster” at school, and is now at the heart of exposing a pregnancy test drug which he believes is responsible for his birth defects.
Primodos super-strength hormone tablets, which were given out by GPs in the 1960s and ’70s, are the subject of an alleged cover-up which could have resulted in thousands of severe defects in children.
Karl Murphy, 43, believes his birth deformities, including missing fingers and toes and a cleft palate, were caused by Primodos.
His campaign group for affected families is hoping for a victory on March 27, when the Government’s expert working group on Primodos is meeting to discuss the case, with results to be published later this year.
Karl has previously spoken out about the struggle of living with his birth defects, which led to him being called the “monster child” at school.
Talking to the Telegraph before the recent Primodos revelations, Karl, from Liverpool, said: “School was hard. Kids can be incredibly cruel.
“We’d play ring-a-ring-a-roses and nobody would want to be next to me. I used to get sick notes for sport because I couldn’t hold a bat.
“It was a lonely time; I was left out of everything.”
Karl, a former traffic officer, had to give up work due to problems with his balance, and has to take painkillers daily to manage his condition.
The campaigner underwent seven major operations by the time he was four, and was born with no toes on his left foot, four on his right, no bones in the roof of his mouth and an underdeveloped hip.
Now Karl, who will be confined to a wheelchair within the next ten years, is making progress in his fight against the Primodos cover up.
With the tablets taken by 1.5 million British mothers, new evidence has exposed the risk of life-threatening birth abnormalities associated with the pills.
A review of archived documents found a damning study conducted by Professor Bill Inman, the man responsible for revising medication safety after the thalidomide scandal.
The research claimed that women who took the drug were five times more likely to give birth to a disabled child than women who didn’t take the drug.
Findings from the study, conducted in 1975, were never made public, and only passed on to the drug’s German manufacturer, Schering.
It also emerged that the pills were not tested before being given to women, which has prompted further outrage from the affected families still waiting for compensation by the manufacturer.
The revelations about the pills, which were eventually withdrawn from the market in 1978, emerged after a Sky News investigation.
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Pharmaceutical giant Bayer, which took over Schering in 2006, denies any link between birth deformities and Primodos tablets.
But Robin Hayes, who founded the campaign group Association for Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Testing, is certain that there is a link.
Robin, whose son Sean died aged 10 after being born with defects, said: “I am convinced, and I will be until my dying day, that this drug was responsible for the death of my child.”
The drug was introduced in 1958 as a quicker way to confirm a pregnancy than sending a woman’s sample to a lab.
But the tablets, which contained 40 times the dose of a contraceptive pill, were linked to miscarriages, heart defects and missing limbs in children.
An earlier damages claim launched in 1982 was dropped as a result of concerns that it would be difficult for victims to prove that the tablets were the cause of any defects.
The latest findings from the Sky investigation will be broadcast on Sky Atlantic on Tuesday in the documentary Primodos: The Secret Drugs Scandal.
In the show, Bayer says the drug was “in compliance with prevailing laws” at the time, and denies that any evidence was concealed.
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