Seven doctors and pharmacists went on trial Wednesday for the deaths of more than 100 young people who died of a brain-destroying disease after being treated with tainted human growth hormones. Hundreds of family members packed the courtroom where the defendants faced charges, including manslaughter and deception, following a 17-year investigation into the deaths of at least 110 young people from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD.From the 1960s through the 1980s, hormones collected from the pituitary glands of human corpses were used to treat thousands of French children whose growth was stunted because of a deficiency in the secretion of growth hormone.
The program ended in 1988 after contaminated growth hormones were linked to CJD -- three years after the United States and Britain stopped the practice because patients had contracted the fatal brain disease.
The case stems from a single complaint in 1991 by a mother whose 15-year-old son was among them, and snowballed as others filed complaints.
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