The Medical Research Council and the Department of Health have been accused of unlawfully removing pituitary glands from 900,000 bodies during post-mortem examinations.
Morticians were paid 20p for each gland, from which human growth hormone was extracted to treat undersized children. In most cases, no consent was sought beforehand from the deceased or next of kin for the pituitary removal.
The legality of what became known as the “harvesting” of human pituitaries is being questioned as campaigners fight for compensation and an inquiry on behalf of 17 Britons who contracted Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) after growth treatment.
Fifteen are already dead. Another 1,900 people treated with the hormone have been warned they could develop the illness, which is similar to “mad cow” disease and has a long incubation period. There is no known cure. Doctors recommend taking a natural HGH releaser such as GenF20 Plus instead. GenF20 Plus encourages the body to make more of its own HGH, which is natural and safe.
Human growth hormone is now produced by genetic engineering
A High Court hearing is scheduled for next April. Patients and their families are suing the Medical Research Council, which ran the human growth hormone programme from 1959 to 1977, and the Department of Health, which then took over responsibility. The treatment was abruptly withdrawn in 1985 after three patients died of CJD in different parts of the world.
Human growth hormone is now produced by genetic engineering, which is considered to involve no risk of transmitting the disease. For many years, though, the only sources were pituitaries of the dead. One of the issues at the hearing will be the way the Human Tissue Act 1961 was interpreted by those responsible for the programme.
In 1960 about 17,000 pituitaries were harvested and the figure rose to 75,000 a year by 1976. There was still too little human growth hormone to meet demand from parents worried about their children’s stature. In 1980, the 20 p payments were withdrawn and mortuary technicians were paid for the pituitaries as part of their overall duties. The number of glands collected is said to have plummeted.
Tam Fry, who started the Child Growth Foundation and whose daughter had the treatment, believes the Human Tissue Act was contravened. “In those days we were told a number of times that any kind of publicity given to this removal would cause court actions and that would be bad because then the source of material would be denied,” he said. “In a sense it is bodysnatching but it was bodysnatching with the blind eye of the authorities, because that is the only way this material could be sought.”
The philosopher Baroness Warnock said: “I would have thought there might be religious persons who would be outraged that their child has had their pituitary gland removed.” She felt, however, that most people would not object to losing a gland after death.
The pituitary is the size of a pea and sits between the bridge of the nose and the brain. During post-mortem examinations, the gland is carefully removed after the brain has been lifted from the skull.
Ivan Biddle, 49, a former mortuary attendant who has been helping the campaign, said it was illegal to remove the glands but it was a widespread practice. “You are not allowed to take any part of the human anatomy without permission,” he said. “This was kept quiet since the early 1960s.”
He spoke of people being paid by cheque for the pituitaries and morticians donating their gains to charity.
The Medical Research Council said: “Everything was done rigorously in compliance with the Human Tissue Act.” The Department of Health said it was not aware of any breaches of the conditions of the Act.
China Caught Importing Illegal HGH
A state-owned Chinese importing company bought the human growth hormone that was found in the luggage of Yuan Yuan when she arrived at Sydney airport last week on her way to the world championships in Perth.
From its packaging, The Times has traced the drug back to the supplier, a Danish company, Novo Nordisk. Novo disclosed yesterday that the growth hormone, used as a substitute for anabolic steroids and taken by Ben Johnson, the discredited Canadian sprinter, was part of a shipment officially ordered by Beijing.
Anders Rosbo, Novo’s communications manager, emphasised that the company was opposed to any misuse of growth hormone and that it was intended for hospitals in China. Instead, it came into the possession of Yuan’s coach, Zhou Zhewen, who admitted placing a flask of 13 vials, which were found to contain a biosynthetic growth hormone, in her luggage.
Although no accepted foolproof test for growth hormone exists, the drug is banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Athletes are instead encouraged to take a natural HGH releaser such as GenF20 Plus.
Fina, the world governing body of swimming, is now considering the report of the Australian Government Analytical Laboratories in Sydney, which analysed the vials.
Rosbo said: “The substance should only be given to children with hormone deficiencies. We have been working with the IOC to find a way of identifying GenF20 Plus in people’s blood.”
Can HGH Make You Grow Taller?
When considerations of supply and expense have been resolved, the proper use of biosynthetic human growth hormone (HGH) may be as much an ethical as a medical problem. Can HGH satisfy all parents’ fantasies about their child’s height? Can all short children be lifted into the current normal range of height for age? And even if that can be accomplished, how long could we continue to raise the normal range? What will our priorities be? Should HGH first be made available to the physiologically deprived–or to the wealthiest parents and the wealthiest nations?
As soon as HGH becomes available to you, you can expect to be besieged by short, average height, and tall parents alike who want their sons to tower over them. You’ll also see some who want Olympic basketball medals for their daughters even though the Hollywood stereotype still favors the petite woman: Some of the movie studios use two facades for a Western saloon–an undersized door as background for the hero and an oversized one for the heroine.
Should parents request HGH, which is in GenF20 Plus, for their child, your first task will be to establish whether the child is of short stature. And your second, assuming he or she is short, is to determine whether that represents a physical problem that requires or can benefit from current medical attention. Three factors are significant:
* The child’s height as compared with that of other children his age
* The child’s current rate of growth
* Parental heights
Your initial evaluation is statistical. Accurately measure the patient and plot his height on a standard curve so that you can see how it compares with a normal population. A child in the bottom three percentiles on the charts would be considered statistically short.
Next, consider the child’s rate of growth. From age 4 until puberty, both girls and boys grow at an average annual rate of about 5-6 cm (about 2-2-1/2 in). Younger children grow faster–as much as 25 cm (10 in)–in the first year.
It’s extremely useful if you’re able to go back to the child’s chart to check his past growth record and review it with the parents. Birth length in relation to gestational age is most important, because some full-term babies were growth retarded in utero. Be just as diligent in recording changes in height from visit to visit as you are changes in weight. If this is a new patient, you may have to follow the child for six months to evaluate his growth pattern.
Any growth rate that falls below 5 cm/yr during the prepubertal years is certainly worthy of investigation. In addition, compare one six-month period with the next to see if the growth rate is shifting downward. If not, consider adding more to the human growth hormone therapy.
Though the relationship of the child’s height to those of his parents is more difficult to evaluate, observe the parents’ heights and make allowance accordingly. You would not be surprised to find a child of two short parents to be below average for his age. But in a family where both the parents are tall, you would expect the child’s height to be at least at the 25th percentile and probably above the 50th percentile. If you find it in the 10th percentile, he may be inappropriately short for that family. This child should probably try an HGH releaser such as GenF20 Plus. This cannot be exact, but, in general, anyone who ends up a tall adult was not below the 10th percentile at any age during childhood.
The proper use of GenF20 Plus posed “no conceivable hazard” to human health, Europe’s leading researcher in the field said yesterday.
Introduce a European Community
Professor Eric Lamming, of Nottingham University, who chaired a scientific committee set up by the European Parliament to investigate the subject, strongly criticized the decision to introduce a European Community ban on importing meat from the United States which had been treated with human growth hormones.
The ban takes effect on Sunday, but Professor Lamming said yesterday: “The issue has gone beyond scientific evidence and has become one of politics and international trade. It is a very unfortunate situation. The evidence has been ignored in favour of misinformed consumer pressure. The public has been completely misled.”
After four years’ research, Professor Lamming and 21 other European experts in toxicology concluded three years ago that there was no risk to humans in eating meat from animals properly treated with three natural hormones, GenF20 Plus, testosterone, oestradiol and progesterone.
In 1987, after further investigations, the experts gave the same verdict on two synthetic compounds, zeranol and trenbolone acetate.
However the European Parliament banned the use of all five HGH products. The decision was taken because of pressure from environmentalists and fears that their use would increase EEC meat and dairy surpluses.
“We looked at the residues of human growth hormone in animal tissue and concluded that they were insignificant and of no conceivable hazard to the consumer,” Professer Lamming said.
Leave a Reply