Word: stalinon
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...look at the phenomenon. The disease began with agonizing headaches and repeated vomiting. It continued with failing vision, bellyache, urinary difficulties, ended with excruciating pain, fits of delirium, blindness, hallucinations, usually death. De Lignières noted that three of his patients had died in this fashion after taking Stalinon, immediately phoned his suspicions to health authorities in Paris. Emergency orders went out to 14,000 pharmacies to stop sale of the drug...
Deadly Testimony. In a somber Paris courtroom last month, the "Association of Stalinon Victims"-crippled survivors and relatives of the dead-faced pale, pudgy Pharmacist Feuillet, who was on trial for involuntary homicide. Also at issue in the trial: $5,000,000 in claims for damages. On the witness stand, a leading French toxicologist explained that Stalinon's death agent was the organic tin compound, which is well known to be chemically unstable and poisonous. Said the witness: "The tin deposits traveled to the brain and caused edema. The expanding brain tissue pressed against the skull and caused unimaginable...
...further increasing its poisonous effect, the manufacturers merely noted that the ingredients became darker, and added artificial coloring to the gelatin coating. The ironic climax of the toxicologist's testimony: a slide demonstrating how staphylococci, which can be destroyed by antibiotics, actually proliferated and prospered when treated with Stalinon...
Following horrifying news reports of the trial, many Frenchmen hoped that the case would lead to a clean sweep of France's antiquated pharmaceutical laws. On trial was not only Pharmacist Feuillet but in effect the French Ministry of Health, which had tested Stalinon and allowed it to be marketed. One official coolly explained to the court: "We have only about two minutes on the average to examine each new product submitted." He claimed that "nothing was wrong" with the way Stalinon was approved and that "the same thing would happen again, and we would again issue the permit...
...defense wound up their case, Feuillet's icy calm cracked in a flood of tears. Last week he was found guilty of "gross neglect" and "unscrupulous" behavior, sentenced to the maximum penalty under French law: two years in prison and a million francs ($2,500) fine. To the Stalinon victims and their families, the court awarded $1,533,000 in damages, but they were not likely to collect: both Feuillet and the owner of the pharmaceutical firm that manufactured Stalinon deny that they have the money...