Patient groups oppose dementia trials

The Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, has passed a bill that would allow researchers to test a wider array of medication on dementia patients.

The bill, passed by the Bundestag on 9 November, would allow researchers to test medical products on dementia patients that may not be specifically catered to individual patients. Instead, they are designed to treat future patients with the purpose of advancing dementia research  “for the greater good”. The Bundesrat, Germany’s upper house of parliament, will now decide whether to bring it into effect.

The bill has received criticism from religious organisations, care groups and Germany’s Green Party. Green MP Kordula Schulz-Asche told the newspaper Zeit Online that it would “destroy confidence in the German research landscape”, and her fellow Green MP Maria Klein-Schmeink took to Twitter to warn that ethics committees would be weakened by the ruling.