“Western drug companies tested pharmaceuticals on more than 50,000 people in the former communist East Germany, often without the knowledge of patients, several of whom died. Some 600 clinical trials were carried out in more than 50 hospitals until the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, the report said, citing previously unpublished documents of the East German health ministry, pharmaceutical institute and Stasi secret police. Many major drug companies from Germany, Switzerland and the United States took part, offering up to 800,000 West German marks per study, a boost for East Germany’s underfunded health care system, Spiegel said.”
