World IN BRIEF : GERMANY : Western Firms Cited Over Medical Tests

Western pharmaceutical firms tested non-approved new medical products on East Germans, circumventing Western laws against early testing on humans, a German weekly claimed. The news magazine Der Spiegel said in its latest issue that, from 1984 until the collapse of the East German government in 1989, Japanese and West German chemical conglomerates were in business with an obscure East German company that helped them test their products on East Germans. Der Spiegel alleged the former East German communist government earned about $12 million in 1989 from such business. The magazine claimed patients often suffered severe side-effects.