A patient dies within a few hours. The doctors are puzzled. No one knows what brought about this sudden death. In the course of the investigations into the cause of death, the suspicion arises that illness, suddenly life-threatening, could have been caused by a drug. It’s name: Alival, produced by Hoechst, the pharmaceutical giant, and prescribed for millions of patients all over the world as a “well-tolerated” drug against depressions. However, the dangerousness of this new drug was not entirely unknown. Months before, doctors had called the attention of the Dundesgesundheitsamt (Federal Health Office) in Berlin to numerous cases of serious damage to organs, and had warned in medical journals against prescribing the drug. In this documentary, “Wanted… A cause of Death”, a WDR-reporter Gert Monheim, investigating the sudden death, inquires into the question whether an earlier intervention by the regulatory authorities could have prevented this case of death and others. For this purpose he held numerous discussions with the Dundesgesundheitsamt, with the producer of the drug, with independent experts in safety of medicines and, not least of all, with the British health authorities, who intervened in January 1986 and this caused Hoeschst to finally withdraw Alival from the market. His investigation, in parts gripping like a thriller, calls into doubt whether drug regulation in the Federal Republic of Germany is reliable and guarantees consumer safety.
Conegut per: Wanted : the cause of a crash = Cause of an air crash = Searching for the cause of an air crash