The latest hearing in legal action over a hormone pregnancy test blamed for causing serious birth defects is due to take place at the High Court.
More than 200 people who claim to have been caused harm by the drug Primodos, which was given to women to test if they were pregnant from the 1950s until the late 1970s, are suing Bayer Pharma, Schering Health Care, Aventis Pharma and the Government in a bid for compensation. Some of those bringing a legal challenge are expected to gather outside the Rolls Building in central London ahead of a hearing before Mrs Justice Yip starting on Tuesday.
The five-day hearing is due to cover the defendants’ bid to have the cases against them thrown out by the court without a trial. Primodos first became available in the UK in 1959, with a user taking a pill on two consecutive days – and if women had a “withdrawal bleed” a few days later this meant they were not pregnant. It was withdrawn from the market in 1978 following concern that it may have been responsible for causing congenital malformations, miscarriages and stillbirth in some cases, the court was previously told.
