Hormone scandal hits France

Thousands of doses of potentially contaminated growth hormone were distributed in France nine months after the warning that its administration to children could cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

A judicial investigation has identified several former officials and the charges against them may be upgraded from involuntary homicide to poisoning.

In France about 1500 children were treated with growth hormone between February 1984 and February 1986. The hormone was purified at the Pasteur Institute and packaged and distributed by the Pharmacie Centrale des Hôpitaux de Paris, or central pharmacy, a public service establishment that distributes drugs to hospitals. An investigation found that some pituitaries were collected by mortuary technicians and medical students in hospitals and homes for old people, sometimes from people who had died of Alzheimer's or other neurological diseases.

In June 1985, after the risk of contamination with the agent causing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was fully recognised, the use of hormone extracted in this way was forbidden unless it had been treated with urea, which was found to be effective in eliminating the contaminating agent.

In some countries, such as Britain and the United States, genetically engineered hormone was used, but in others, notably in France, urea treatment of extracted hormone became standard practice.

According to Judge Marie-Odiel Bertella-Geffroy, in June 1985 the central pharmacy still had about 20000 vials of the untreated hormone, worth more than Fr5m (£550 000, $825 000), and it continued to distribute them until March 1986. Since then about 50 children or young people have contracted the disease, and 40 have died. The 50 cases reported in France represent more than half of all known cases worldwide, and many more cases may occur in the coming years.

Five people have already been placed under judicial examination in this case. They are Dr Fernand Dray of the Pasteur Institute; Jacques Dangoumau, former director of drugs and pharmacy at the ministry of health; Henry Cerceau, director of the central pharmacy; Dr Elisabeth Mugnier, who was responsible for the collection of pituitaries; and Professor Jean-Claude Job, former president of France-Hypophyse, an association of doctors and administrators that helped coordinate the distribution of growth hormone.