Aspirin isn't the only "wonder drug that works wonders" that Bayer made. The German
pharmaceutical giant also introduced heroin to the world.
The company was looking for a cough suppressant that didn't
have problematic side effects, mainly addiction, like morphine
and codeine. And if it could relieve pain better than morphine,
that was a welcome bonus.
When one of Bayer's chemists approached the head of the
pharmacological lab with ASA — to be sold under the name
"aspirin" — he was waved away. The boss was more interested
in something else the chemists had cooked up — diacetylmorphine.
(This narcotic had been created in 1874 by a British
chemist, who had never done anything with it.)
Using the tradename "Heroin" — because early testers said it
made them feel heroisch (heroic) — Bayer sold this popular
drug by the truckload starting in 1898. Free samples were sent
to thousands of doctors; studies appeared in medical journals.
The Sunday Times of London noted: "By 1899, Bayer was
producing about a ton of heroin a year, and exporting the drug
to 23 countries," including the US. Medicines containing
smack were available over-the-counter at drug stores, just as aspirin is today. The American
Medical Association gave heroin its stamp of approval in 1907.
But reports of addiction, which had already started appearing in 1899, turned into a torrent after
several years. Bayer had wisely released aspirin the year after heroin, and this new non-addictive
painkiller and anti-inflammatory was well on its way to becoming the most popular drug ever. In
1913, Bayer got out of the heroin business.
Not that the company has kept its nose clean since then:
A division of the pharmaceutical company Bayer sold millions of dollars of blood-clotting
medicine for hemophiliacs — medicine that carried a high risk of transmitting AIDS — to
Asia and Latin America in the mid-1980s while selling a new, safer product in the West,
according to documents obtained by The New York Times.... [I]n Hong Kong and Taiwan
alone, more than 100 hemophiliacs got HIV after using Cutter's old medicine, according to
records and interviews. Many have since died.
The Bayer Company Made Heroin
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