UNCOVERED: TrumpRX fertility drug maker's horrific history and recent radicalism

Though the Trump administration claims to be pro-life and has made efforts to combat destructive transgender ideology, it has also disturbingly thrown support behind the expansion of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), which comes with a heavy cost in the destruction of a staggering number of the most vulnerable human beings.

To make good on his intention to make IVF more accessible and affordable, President Trump promised access to discounted IVF drugs through the TrumpRX website. This month, it is set to officially launch, with the inclusion of a fertility drug from biopharmaceutical company EMD Serono.

But a deeper dive into EMD Serono reveals the company’s disreputable history and troubling current initiatives. The Trump administration, in promoting not only IVF but a partnership with this questionable drug company, is not proving itself to be pro-life.

Key Takeaways:

• EMD Serono makes a fertility drug frequently used for IVF that is included on the TrumpRX website launching this month, which Trump promised would be heavily discounted for IVF.

• EMD Serono's parent company, Merck KGaA, had strong ties to the Nazi regime during the years surrounding World War II and a long history of secret deals, supplying drugs to the Nazis, and supplying chemical compounds the Nazis used in weapons.

• After the war, Merck KGaA was not dissolved like some other drugmakers that contributed to the Nazi regime; this was a mistake that has had lasting consequences.

• EMD Serono's present-day allies are attempting to radically redefine infertility so that those who cannot create children naturally in same-sex relationships can gain the 'right' to access reproductive technologies to address their so-called “infertility” issues.  

• More lives are likely to be lost to IVF due to the Trump administration's promotion of EMD Serono's fertility drugs.

The Backstory:

Nazis and narcotics

The parent company of EMD Serono, Merck KGaA (KGaA is short for Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien, meaning “limited partnership on shares”), had strong ties to the Nazi party. 

In 1668, Friedrich Jacob Merck first purchased Engel-Apotheke (Angel Pharmacy), but it wasn’t until 1827 that Heinrich Emanuel Merck began producing and selling morphine through the pharmacy. Though the company's original location was in Darmstadt, Germany and was referred to as Merck Darmstadt, it rapidly began to expand around the globe. 

Though it seems almost unthinkable to us today, cocaine was produced and legally sold around the world in the mid-19th century, and was highly profitable for pharmaceutical companies like Merck Darmstadt. It wasn’t until about 100 years later, in the mid-20th century, that the highly addictive drug was outlawed. 

Author Alexander Wolff, a descendant of the Merck family, noted that “Merck soon became famous for the purity of its morphine, and by the 1880s the firm enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the world’s legitimate cocaine trade.”(1) 

Norman Ohler, author of “Blitzed Drugs in the Third Reich,” stated that Merck’s drugs were quite popular with the Nazis at the time, who “wanted Merck’s cocaine in its original packaging: that internationally popular product from Darmstadt…One Reich, one dealer.”(2) Merck also began producing the addictive drug Eukodal (oxycodone) prior to 1920 and became a world leader in selling opiates.(3)  

Ohler wrote that Adolf Hitler’s personal doctor, Dr. Theodor Morell, often used drug cocktails of Merck’s cocaine and Eukodal for Hitler’s daily drug consumption and injections. By late 1942, Morell’s records revealed over a thousand doses administered to Hitler. 

In his writings, Alexander Wolff suggested that Hitler's heavy drug use, particularly towards the end of the war, likely contributed to his erroneous belief in his ability to win and his refusal to face the reality of his inevitable defeat, “where a sober leader might have folded his hand.”(4) In addition, Wolff's research showed that Merck Darmstadt drugs were used to keep Nazi soldiers alert and awake for extended periods of time on the battlefield against Allied forces. Historical documents revealed that cocaine-laced chewing gum and pills were given in large quantities to Nazi soldiers and Hitler Youth (some as young as 10 to 12 years old) during suicide torpedo missions to keep them awake for long intervals, as cocaine is a powerful stimulant. (5) 

Knee-deep in the Nazi regime

According to historical records, Wilhelm Merck (1893-1952) became a partner of the familial Merck Darmstadt company in 1921 and was heavily entrenched in the Nazi regime under Hitler.

De-nazification court records show that Wilhelm joined the Nazi Party in 1933, was a member of the National Socialist Motor corps and the National Socialist Flying Corps, and a member of the ruthless SS, which Wolff states “...would be implicated in every atrocity perpetrated by the regime, from supervising the Gestapo to running death camps.”(6) After the war, Wilhelm was classified by the court as a “follower” of the Nazi regime and received a fine of 2,000 Reichsmarks as punishment.  

Karl Emanuel Merck, who was the lead family partner of Merck Darmstadt through WWII, was also a member of the Nazi party.(7) 

Merck Darmstadt’s leadership acted in line with the Nazi regime to which they belonged; historical documents revealed that the Merck Darmstadt factory used hundreds of forced laborers, mostly women. Historical accounts and documents claim that during air raids by Allied forces in 1944, the forced laborers were denied access to bomb shelters, resulting in a substantial number of laborers' deaths. 

Secret deals and major mistakes

Merck Darmstadt was also alleged to be involved in “secret deals,” supplying the Nazi armament factories with chemical compounds used as fuel for Nazi torpedoes, rockets, and jets.(8)

Unlike other chemical companies such as I.G. Farben, which the Allies forced to dissolve after WWII due to its manufacturing of Zyklon B (the gas-chamber poison used during the Holocaust), Merck Darmstadt was allowed to rebuild and continue operating — despite the forced labor, supplying of the Nazis with drugs, and “collaborat[ion] on secret arms projects…”(10)   

Notably, Wolff quotes excerpts from the 350th anniversary history of Merck: 

“If, after 1945, the Allies had more thoroughly investigated the company’s wartime activities… Merck’s continued existence probably would have been endangered… The American authorities would have found arguments for classifying Merck among the major industrial ‘warmongers.’”(10)  

Had the Allies thoroughly investigated Merck as they did I.G. Farben (later tied to the abortion pill), the findings likely would have shut Merck down, and EMD Serono with its mass production of fertility drugs commonly used in the IVF process might not be in existence today. 

Birth control, biotech, and business deals

Fast forwarding to March 2006, Merck KGaA attempted to purchase the drug maker Schering, which at the time was considered the “world leader” in oral contraceptives. However, Merck was outbid by Bayer – one of the three companies allowed to branch off and remain after the forced dissolution of I.G. Farben.

Ironically, after failing to purchase the leader in birth control, the company acquired fertility drugs. Later that same year, Merck KGaA also acquired the largest biotech company in Switzerland – Serono – which developed the fertility drug Pergonal (a combination of human Follicle-Stimulating Hormone, or FSH, and Luteinizing hormone, or LH) that was used to help facilitate the conception of Elizabeth Carr, the first infant born in the U.S. using IVF. 

It was after this acquisition that “Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany” became EMD (Emmanuel Merck Darmstadt) Serono. 

The production of Gonal-F (man-made FSH) by EMD Serono received its first approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1997. While the drug is not solely used for the purpose of IVF, according to GoodRX, the drug is commonly used to “develop multiple follicles in females” during the IVF process. It is one of several fertility treatment drugs often used in IVF, which Trump promised at deeply discounted prices through TrumpRX.gov. 

As part of the agreement, EMD Serono also promised to invest in the U.S. manufacturing of IVF drugs and another EMD Serono fertility drug, Pergoveris, was granted “priority review” by the FDA.   

What's Happening Now:

Radical partnerships seek to end ‘heteronormative’ families

Today, EMD Serono financially supports and collaborates with groups promoting LGBTQ+ advocacy, such as RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association and the Gay Parenting Assistance Program (GPAP) (a.k.a. Men Having Babies). Together, these groups work to further undermine the traditional family (heteronormativity) and demand insurance coverage of IVF and surrogacy for same-sex couples and single individuals.

By “improv[ing] access” – which includes the demand that health insurance companies cover the cost of IVF – these LGBTQ+ advocacy groups demean the real and often painful infertility struggles of heterosexual couples by radically changing the definition of infertility to supposedly be more “inclusive.” Their goal is to “account for LGBTQ+ or single individuals who may also need fertility treatments to build their families but do not meet this heteronormative definition of infertility.” 

In other words, despite knowing the biological reality that only a male-female sexual union is capable of resulting in natural procreation, these LGBTQ+ groups and their allies are determined to make it so that the universally accepted definition of infertility no longer applies to only these natural, biological unions. Instead, “infertility” must now include individuals who are not biologically infertile, but who are not in naturally fertile (heterosexual) sexual relationships, they cannot reproduce naturally. These individuals are then afforded special treatment in the name of “inclusivity,” all while demeaning and diminishing the true infertility struggles of heterosexual couples as well as demanding the "right" to obtain children through reproductive technologies.

Not even the World Health Organization defines infertility in this 'new' way, instead defining it as “a disease of the male or female reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. Infertility may occur due to male, female or unexplained factors.” 

Clearly, a same-sex couple with a biological inability to reproduce naturally together is not an “unexplained factor.” 

The Harms

The bottom line is that it is harmful...

• to redefine infertility so that those who aren't actually infertile get assistance in shopping for surrogates and paying for IVF.

• to encourage the intentional creation of motherless or fatherless children, which creates separation trauma and identity issues for children.

• to use donor gametes, surrogates, and IVF to commodify human reproduction.

But that hasn’t stopped these radical groups, who have the partnership of EMD Serono. Live Action News previously reported that the group Men Having Babies vocally supported California bill SB 729, which set out to  “remove financial barriers” to surrogacy. The newly implemented law requires “large group health care service” plans with 100 or more employees to “provide coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility and fertility services.” SB 729 redefined infertility to match the aforementioned “inclusive” verbiage provided by radical LGBTQ+ groups.

RESOLVE has also been actively opposing pro-life legislation across the U.S. to ensure that IVF remains legal and accessible. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the group falsely claimed, “Not only do people have the right to create embryos, but they are the only ones who have the right to determine what happens to their embryos.”

Fertility is not a right, just as choosing which innocent human beings live or die is not a right.

Whether intentional or not, President Trump's urging of insurance companies to include coverage of IVF services could support the changes to the definition of "infertility" to include people who are not actually biologically infertile, identical to what is promoted by EMD Serono's LGBTQ+ advocacy partners.

Why It Matters: 

History, like the horrors of the Holocaust, teaches the dangers of dehumanizing ideologies and the atrocities that follow in their wake.

EMD Serono, with its parent company’s Nazi associations and its current LGBTQ+ advocacy allies, continues to exploit and profit from today’s political climate at the cost of real human lives.

The Trump administration's partnership with EMD Serono for the expansion of access to IVF drugs is unacceptable for an administration that claims to be pro-life.