Retired doctor made ‘cancer medicine’ in the basement

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Empty medicine boxes and tubes are stacked in the basement “laboratory”. Around 90 Tupperware containers containing plant extracts lie around it, all neatly labeled by hand. There are thickeners and large boxes of dark liquids. What Swissmedic investigators found in a search of a retired doctor’s home in August 2019 “indicates that drugs are being manufactured on a larger scale”.

That’s what it says in the recently published anonymized criminal notice from the drug authority. In it, Swissmedic snarled at the retired doctor for a conditional fine of 6,000 francs and a fine of 1,500 francs. The supervisory authority considers it guilty of producing, placing on the market, importing and exporting medicinal products commercially without the necessary license.

a note from germany

The doctor was already in conflict with the law in 2010: “Beobserver”, at the time Swissmedic had caught up with him regarding the same crime and ordered him to immediately cease production of the drug.

This, of course, did not affect the doctor. In 2018, the German Federal Institute for Medicines and Medical Devices informed Swissmedic that they were aware of a self-prepared drug that the doctor in question had brought from Switzerland to Germany and shipped from there to customers in Germany and Austria.

Swissmedic tracked the man again, and during the investigation they also found a website offering drugs “from our home” next to the basement manufacturing facility.

alternative treatment for cancer

This online store had something for everyone: a remedy for chronic asthma in children, a “promising alternative treatment for cancer”, a remedy for herpes, skin inflammation and insect bites, and a weight loss product.

The retired doctor violated the Drugs Act multiple times with the manufacture and sale of drugs in his basement laboratory. For example, the unauthorized production and marketing of medicinal products is prohibited. Advertisement of unauthorized means and promises of salvation are also prohibited. According to the penal order, the medicines produced by the doctor are “medicinal products manufactured in Switzerland without exception. […] may not be placed on the national or cantonal market”.

However, according to the sentencing authority, it could not be proven that he specifically endangered people. However, because of the praise of the drugs, “it cannot be ruled out that individuals are discouraged from (more effective) treatment or from going to the doctor early”.

Source :Blick