Switzerland: Revelations of illegal medical trials conducted on adopted children
Shocking revelations show that hundreds of minors brought to Switzerland through international adoption were used for pharmaceutical testing between 1964 and 1979.
Switzerland: Revelations of illegal medical trials conducted on adopted children
Hundreds of young children placed in Swiss families through international adoption were subjected to clinical experiments without their consent or that of their parents. These events, which took place from 1964 to 1979, were uncovered by an investigation by the magazine Beobachter in spring 2026, according to the newspaper Le Temps.
The victims, estimated at nearly two thousand, came primarily from Korea and India. Upon arrival in Switzerland, these minors were isolated in quarantine, even when no symptoms justified it. These periods of isolation served as cover to subject them to research protocols carried out in clinics throughout the country.
The NGO Terre des hommes and its historical founder, Edmond Kaiser, are directly implicated. The humanitarian aid organisation is accused of diverting its reception mission to provide research subjects to medical teams.
These practices, characterised as abusive by investigators, caused shockwaves through Swiss society. Several parliamentarians announced their intention to initiate proceedings to establish responsibility and offer reparation to those affected. The Confederation, which had already begun work recognising malfunctions related to adoption, finds itself confronted with accusations of unprecedented scale.
Source: Le Temps
Source: Le Temps