Diabetes Prevention, Care and Research in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), C.1949 – 1990
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‘Conditionally Healthy and Able to Work’: Diabetes Prevention, Care and Research in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), c.1949 – 1990 A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health 2019 Kathrin A. Hiepko Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine 1 CONTENTS I: List of Abbreviations 4 II: List of Figures 6 III: Abstract 7 IV: Declaration and Copyright 8 V: Acknowledgements 9 Introduction 11 0.1 A dictatorship of sorts: political and economic interpretations of the GDR 14 0.2 Debates on East German medical thinking and prevention practices 21 0.3 Historical (im)balance: studies on the East German healthcare system and its medical professionals 26 0.4 New directions: using diseases as case studies for the analysis of the GDR 35 0.5 Outline of the thesis and sources 39 Chapter 1: A System of Chronic Disease Management for a ‘New Society’: The Introduction of Diabetes Care in the GDR (c. 1949-1961) 44 1.1 The epidemiological strategy of social hygiene and its emphasis on prevention in early East German diabetes management 44 1.2 The development of outpatient care for diabetics: the polyclinic model and the Dispensaire System 51 1.3 Defining the role of the new state socialist doctor and diabetes specialist 56 1.4 Economic and material challenges in evolving state socialism and their impact on the treatment methods for diabetics 63 1.5 The introduction of specialist institutions for diabetics 70 1.6 Conclusion 80 Chapter 2: ‘Aktion Störfreimachung’ and the Shadow of the Berlin Wall (1961-1966) 82 2.1 Import-Insulin and the policy of Störfreimachung 87 2.2 The site of consumption: diabetes advice centres during the ‘Störfreimachung period’ 98 2.3 Finding new consumers: the expansion of regional screening programmes for diabetes 105 2.4 Responding to consumption: the evaluation of the structures of diabetes care 111 2 2.5 Conclusion 120 Chapter 3: Keeping Up, Moving Ahead and Falling Behind: the GDR’s Drive for International Recognition (1966-1973) 123 3.1 From Institut to Zentralinstitut: the position and leadership of the GDR’s foremost institution for diabetes 125 3.2 The ‘Research Project “Diabetes Mellitus”’ and ambitions for ‘world-leading’ research 133 3.3 Painting a positive picture of East German diabetology: trips abroad and visits made by international specialists 140 3.4 Already ahead of the rest? Changing perceptions of prevention and organisation in ambulatory and stationary care 148 3.5 Conclusion 157 Chapter 4: The Height of the so-called ‘Normalisation’ Period (1973-1980) 158 4.1 The ‘Research Project “Diabetes Mellitus”’ in the early Honecker years 161 4.2 Clinics I, II, III: the ‘normalisation’ of the Central Institute for Diabetes 165 4.3 ‘A highly qualified, highly specialised, high achieving, highly complicated and highly organised system of care’: the Dispensaire System’s capacity to deliver ‘real-existing socialism’ to diabetics 171 4.4 The pharmacy of the Eastern Bloc? Insulins, oral anti-diabetic tablets and the continued dilemma of imports 179 4.5 Conclusion 190 Chapter 5: The Final Curtain for Diabetes Care and Research ‘East German-Style’ (1980-1990) 192 5.1. Importablösung: a return to the 1960s? 196 5.2 The patients’ view: everyday life of diabetics in the final decade as portrayed by the Patientenaktiv and in Eingaben 207 5.3 The diabetologists’ view part I: struggles at home 216 5.4. The diabetologists’ view part II: international recognition at last? 221 5.5 Conclusion 230 Conclusion 232 Bibliography 241 Appendix 273 *Word count: 99,999 (incl. footnotes), 80,878 (excl. footnotes) 3 List of Abbreviations Alt-Insulin Fast-acting pig and bovine insulin by VEB Berlin-Chemie AWD Arzneimittelwerk Dresden BArch Bundesarchiv/ Federal Archive (Berlin Lichterfelde) Berlinsulin Depot bovine insulin by VEB Berlin-Chemie B-Insulin Depot pig and bovine insulin by VEB Berlin-Chemie BStu Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik/ Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic COMECON Council for Mutual Economic Assistance DAFNE Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating EASD European Association for the Study of Diabetes EDESG European Diabetes Epidemiology Study Group EDV Elektronische Datenverarbeitung/ Electronic Data Processing FRG Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) FDJ Freie Deutsche Jugend/ Free German Youth GDR German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, ‘DDR’) GERMED Pharmaceutical combine created in 1979 Humaninsulin Recombinant/ ‘human’ insulin IBM International Business Machines Corporation IDF International Diabetes Federation IFAR Institut für Arzneimittelwesen/ Institute for Drugs IM Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter/ Stasi informant 4 Kombinat Industrial Combine L-SNC Depot neutral pig insulin MC Mono-component insulin NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NÖS Neues Ökonomisches System der Planung und Leitung/ New Economic System of Planning and Management NPH Neutral Protamine Hagedorn/ isophane insulin Polfa Polska farmacja PZ Protamine Zinc insulin SAPMO Stiftung Parteien und Massenorganisationen der ehemaligen DDR/ Foundation Archive of the Parties and Mass Organisations of the GDR in the Federal Archives SED Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands/ Socialist Unity Party of Germany SMAD Soviet Military Administration SNC Fast-acting neutral pig insulin SPOFA Spojené farmaceutické závody Stasi Staatssicherheitsdienst der DDR/ State Security Service of the GDR TB Tuberculosis UN United Nations VEB Volkseigener Betrieb/ Publicly Owned Enterprise WHO World Health Organisation ZGA Zentraler Gutachterausschuss für Arzneimittelverkehr/ Central Review Committee for Drug Traffic at the Ministry of Health ZID Zentralinstitut (Central Institute) für Diabetes ‘Gerhardt Katsch’ 5 List of Figures Figure 1: An example of a polyclinic in East Berlin, August 1976 53 Figure 2: Prof. Dr. Gerhardt Katsch (1887-1961), inventor of the notion that diabetics were ‘conditionally healthy and able to work’ 58 Figure 3: Formerly ‘Schloss Karlsburg’, now the ‘Institut für Diabetes’ 71 Figure 4: The Boarding School for Diabetics, Island of Rügen, September 1964 78 Figure 5: Repairing a filling machine at the insulin department of VEB Berlin-Chemie, April 1971 88 Figure 6: Typical example of a test set containing urine test strips from Feinchemie KG, Sebnitz 103 Figure 7: The 1965 article ‘Every Tenth is a Diabetic’, promoting the importance and merits of large-scale screening 110 Figure 8: Sanatorium Rheinsberg, September 1964 113 Figure 9: The Zentralstelle für Diabetes und Stoffwechselkrankheiten, East Berlin, May 1971 116 Figure 10: Placard highlighting obesity as a risk factorfor cardiovascular disease and diabetes, 1970 153 Figure 11: Taking blood samples from patients at the Central Institute for Diabetes (Klinik I), October 1978 167 Figure 12: Diabetes nurse dealing with a patient admission at the Central Institute for Diabetes, 1978 176 Figure 13: Glass syringe produced in the 1970s and 1980s by VEB Injecta Steinach 206 Figure 14: A specialist shop selling the East German brand of diet foods, ‘Sucrosin’, October 1973 211 * Translation note I, the author, have translated all original quotations, phrases and medical terminology from German into English 6 Abstract Abstract submitted to the University of Manchester in February 2019 for a Doctor of Philosophy thesis by Kathrin Hiepko entitled: ‘Conditionally Healthy and Able to Work’: Diabetes Prevention, Care and Research in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), c. 1949- 1990 This thesis seeks to chart the development of a comprehensive system of diabetes care in a socialist state, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). There have been few seminal studies to date on chronic diseases using state socialism, and in particular the GDR, as a contextual base. The thesis serves to highlight the fact that chronic diseases were acknowledged, treated and rationalised behind the Iron Curtain. It uses diabetes as a case study to shed light on what exactly the state socialist response was to a rising, and potentially debilitating, disease. It is therefore primarily concerned with what makes diabetes management in the GDR, first, distinctly state socialist, and, second, unmistakably East German. Following the Second World War, a radically different approach to health developed out of the rubble in the Soviet Zone and later GDR. The principle of social hygiene, firmly within the realm of epidemiology, focused on the economic and social causes of disease. It allowed for the previously marginal diabetes to become a focus of attention when East German diabetologists discovered an unexpectedly higher incidence of the disease than previously assumed. Aware that diabetes could lead to complications, the addition of a Marxist-Leninist productionist critique meant that the prevention of invalidity and keeping people in work were of paramount concern, leading to the development of an elaborate screening programme and a prevailing attitude of ‘prevention first’. When the diabetologist responsible for the creation of the GDR’s showcase ‘(Central)Institute for Diabetes’, Gerhardt Katsch, proclaimed that diabetics were ‘conditionally healthy and able to work’, it chimed with the expectations of a regime of which he and his ideas were now a part. Surveying the entirety of the GDR’s lifetime, this thesis begins by looking at the introduction