The prosecutor’s office in the German city of Lubeck has opened a case against the doctor and businessman Winfried Stecker in connection with his experiments to create a vaccine against COVID-19.
Deutsche Welle reports.
The 74-year-old Stecker is suspected of violating the drug law, a spokesman for the city’s prosecutor’s office of the German media company MDR Sachsen said on Tuesday, February 9.
According to the investigation, in the spring of 2020, a professor, doctor of medical sciences, who has a laboratory in Lubeck, developed a possible vaccine against coronavirus and tested its effect on himself and other people, without having the appropriate permission. In particular, in March and April, Stecker, according to his own statement, injected himself with the drug four times into the thigh muscle.
According to media reports, Stecker also tested the drug on his wife, children, and 65 other volunteers. According to him, there were no side effects, except for a slight irritation and pain at the injection site, and all vaccinated had antibodies.
In early September, he reported his findings to the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which is responsible for vaccine registration and monitoring in Germany. The doctor asked for more trials to confirm the drug’s effectiveness, and the Institute went to the prosecutor’s office instead.
In 1987, Stecker founded Euroimmun, a company dedicated to the development of methods for the recognition of autoimmune and infectious diseases. The campaign now has offices in 17 countries. In 2017, Stecker sold Euroimmun to the American concern for 1.2 billion euros.
