The real introduction of the drug wouldn’t happen until twenty-three years later at a Bayer pharmaceuticals factory in Wuppertal, North-Western Germany. A Bayer chemist by the name of Felix Hoffmann, the same one that was credited with aspirin, was the man responsible for the drug. He was instructed by his supervisor, Heinrich Dreser, to produce a more effective substitute for codeine for the pharmaceutical company. There were issues with the addictive properties in codeine, so Bayer was looking for an all-new non-addictive alternative to introduce into the marketplace.
The result of Hoffman’s work would not, ironically, produce codeine, but rather a drug that is actually far less potent and more highly addictive than morphine, not to mention two and a half times more potent! The drug that would become known and marketed as heroin, was originally referred to as ‘Heroisch’, the German word for ‘Heroic’. The name was a reference to the elevated emotional state that Bayer discovered the drug induced in its user. The emergence of the formula by Hoffman would lead to Bayer pioneering the commercialisation of heroin around the world. The drug was marketed as a non-addictive medicinal alternative to morphine and codeine; a claim that we are now well aware was false.
The testing phase began immediately and was conducted mostly with rabbits and frogs, but soon moved to human trials. The drug was tested on various Bayer employees and even on Hoffman himself. The next stage involved Dreser presenting heroin to the Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians in November of 1898. Dreser touted the drug as a miracle cure for coughs that was ten times more effective than codeine, with ten times fewer side effects, and none of the habit-forming properties. Bayer trademarked its original ‘wonder drug’ in 1898 and would soon market it to families worldwide.
Dr Bernard Lazarus did his own analysis of heroin, which he published in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, in 1900. In this he cited seven cases in which the use of heroin hydrochloride for the relief of coughs, especially in the case of tuberculosis, was an effective option. He goes on to state: ‘The very thorough investigations which I have made with heroin hydrochloride in my practice enable me impartially to state that I consider this drug a most valuable aid to the medical profession.’
In our age of modern medical achievements we may ask ourselves why would any parent turn to a dangerous drug like heroin as a cough remedy for their children? The reputation of heroin is well established today, but back in the late nineteenth century it was a brand-new product, without the horrific reputation it carries today. Bayer was simply filling the need that was left in the marketplace to address the mortal fear of the dreaded cough. When a child came down with a cough in this pre-vaccination era it was a frightening situation for their parents. There was an intense, but very well founded, fear of a deadly disease striking, such as tuberculosis, pneumonia or pertussis (aka whooping cough). The death toll from tuberculosis in the United States alone back in 1900 was nearly 150,000 per annum. The prevalent thought process at the time was that the intense cough was the symptom that would lead to the disease. We now know that is not the case, but the desire to prevent and eliminate a cough once it surfaced, and to eliminate coughing fits while one was trying to rest, was one that companies were happy to try and satisfy through various remedies and products.
It was all the way back on 6 March 1899 when Bayer first patented aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) with the Imperial Patent Office in Berlin, but for decades now, the company has been promoting the medicine as a preventative for heart attacks and this has become a major selling point for aspirin products. It is common knowledge nowadays that taking a low-dose aspirin each day can prevent a heart attack or stroke. The blood-thinning medication can help to keep blood clots from forming.
Bayer has branded their aspirin with motivational, and telling, slogans such as ‘The More You Know, The More You Trust Bayer’, and ‘Take it for Pain, Take it for Life’. Their most recent, as of the writing of his book, was ‘Expect Wonders’. In fact, they continue to label their aspirin as a pro-heart ‘wonder drug’. Bayer has marketed their aspirin this way, but the reality of a Bayer aspirin regime is that it can reduce instances of a fatal heart attack by ten per cent and non-fatal heart attacks by twenty per cent, but it has been shown to increase gastrointestinal bleeding episodes in thirty per cent of users, according to a 2012 research study.
The marketing of their second major product, heroin-hydrochloride, persisted well into the twentieth century. A Bayer Pharmaceutical Products ad from 1901 markets the drug to pharmacies as a way to manufacture their own remedies like ‘cough elixirs, cough balsams, cough drops, cough lozenges and cough medicines of any kind’. Bayer would also use the slogan: ‘The Sedative For Coughs’, to describe their heroin product. Vintage Bayer adverts in Spanish newspapers around 1912 featured ads that clearly market the use of heroin or ‘heronia’ to children. The adverts feature headlines such as ‘la tos desaparece’, which translates to ‘cough disappears’, and feature doting mothers administering the ‘medicine’ to their offspring.
The bottles were offered in 1oz quantities at a cost of $4.85 per ounce. Allowing for inflation, the cost would be just over $139 per ounce today. Bayer didn’t limit their marketing of heroin as just a cough remedy however; they actually suggested it was a miracle cure-all that could be used for everything from schizophrenia to the common cold. Obviously, we know that none of these claims had any basis whatsoever, but snake oil marketing like this wasn’t uncommon for the era and certainly wasn’t limited to Bayer.
The thought of developing and marketing heroin to the public, much less children, seems particularly heinous. The question has to be asked, can we actually hold Bayer responsible? After all, we didn’t know that heroin was such a dangerous and addictive drug back in those days, right? Unfortunately, that is not necessarily the case. Concerns were raised about the addictiveness of the drug very early on – as early as the year after its release. Bayer was well aware of this concern, but continued to market heroin to children well into the twentieth century. It wasn’t until 1914 that the drug was finally restricted to a prescription-only medication by the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act. Heroin wouldn’t be fully banned from sale and importation until 1924. If heroin were the darkest skeleton in Bayer’s past it would be more than enough, but it is only the beginning of their twisted story.
The creation and marketing of heroin to children could perhaps be enough to constitute a seriously dark past, but the skeletons in Bayer’s closet seem to go far deeper than that.
During the Second World War there was a pharmaceutical conglomerate named IG Farben. The IG is short for the German word Interessengemeinschaft, which translates to ‘Association of Common Interests’. IG Farben consisted of eight different companies, BASF, Hoechst, Agfa, Chemische Fabrik Griesheim-Elektron, Chemische Fabrik vorm. Weiler Ter Meer, Cassella, Chemische Fabrik Kalle and Bayer. Bayer wasn’t just a part of the corporate machine, they were actually one of the major players in IG Farben with a 27.4 per cent equity capital investment. IG Farben employed hundreds of thousands of German citizens by the late 1930s and would become the single largest Germany exporter, enjoying a monopoly in the marketplace.
IG Farben decided to go into business with Adolf HItler and his Nazi Party early on and enjoyed a long relationship with the future dictator. In fact, IG Farben would donate significant amounts of money to the National Socialist Party to support their political election campaigns. Adolf Hitler was appointed the German chancellor on 30 January 1933, after a failed attempt at a presidential run in 1932. This new position of power served only to embolden the Nazi Party and they quickly set their sights on the upcoming German elections to be held on 5 March 1933. The Nazis were hoping to gain a majority vote in the Reichstag, so that they could pass the Enabling Act. The Act was a Weimar Constitutional amendment that would give Hitler the ability to enact laws on his own with the approval of the German Cabinet, effectively bypassing any approvals previously needed from the Reichstag. The Act, along with the preceding Reichstag Fire Decree, would pave the way for Hitler’s dictatorship and absolute power in Germany.