Parkrun celebrates its 20th anniversary this weekend after growing from a group of 13 people to a phenomenon that takes place in more than 2,500 locations.
Founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt put on the first event on Saturday 2 October 2004 at Bushy Park in southwest London as he recovered from an injury.
The number of runners for the 5k event grew each week and other locations were added.
Mr Sinton-Hewitt – who received a CBE in 2014 – shared flyers for the first event with his two running clubs, Ranelagh Harriers and The Stragglers.
“I didn’t recognise everyone. Of the 13 about eight came for coffee, that was the start of the experience,” he said.
He was inspired by similar events in South Africa, where he grew up, and said Parkrun helped him with his mental health struggles.
Runs in Wimbledon, Richmond, Banstead, Leeds and Brighton started between 2006 and 2007 and Zimbabwe hosted the first international event.
Parkrun is now established in 23 countries and more than 10 million people are registered
“I went from ‘let’s grow this running event’ into something that’s more strategic, around mental health, physical health and wellbeing,” said Mr Sinton-Hewitt.
About 2,000 GP surgeries globally are now twinned with a Parkrun and refer patients to the events to help their physical and mental wellbeing.
Image: Darren Wood (left) has done 913 events, (pictured with Parkrun founder Paul Sinton-Hewitt). Pic: PA
Darren Wood, 42, from Carshalton in south London, has completed the most Parkruns of anyone – 913.
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A junior Parkrun began 14 years ago and events are also held in 25 prisons and young offenders’ institutions.
Image: Thousands of events take place each weekend. Pic: PA
In February, Parkrun removed speed records from its website to reduce their “off-putting” nature and dispel the perception that the runs are races.
The move came amid criticism from some for allowing transgender women to compete in the female category.
Mr Sinton-Hewitt hopes anniversary events this weekend will be smaller than the 1,000th Bushy Park event in August when more than 6,000 people showed up.
He said Parkrun should be “at a reasonable level where you can identify other people in the community, you can identify people like you”.
“A 100 marathon runner doesn’t need Parkrun any more but she will still go to see her friends,” Mr Sinton-Hewitt added.
MPs are calling for a new review into the dangers of the drug Primodos, claiming that families who suffered avoidable harm from it have been “sidelined and stonewalled”.
MPs said the suggestion there is no proven link between the hormone pregnancy test and babies being born with malformations is “factually and morally wrong”.
A report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on hormone pregnancy tests claims evidence was “covered up” and it is possible to “piece together a case that could reveal one of the biggest medical frauds of the 20th century”.
Around 1.5 million women in Britain were given hormone pregnancy tests between the 1950s and 1970s.
They were instructed to take the drug by their GPs as a way of finding out if they were pregnant.
But Primodos was withdrawn from the market in the UK in the late 1970s after regulators warned “an association was confirmed” between the drug and birth defects.
However, in 2017 an expert working group found there was insufficient evidence of a causal association.
But MPs now claim this report is flawed. It’s hugely significant because the study was relied upon by the government and manufacturers last year to strike out a claim for compensation by the alleged victims.
The APPG refers to research by Sky News which found aspects of the expert working group’s report were altered between the draft and completion.
It says: “Any risk of undue influence was confirmed by Freedom of Information (FOI) requests obtained by Sky News… that revealed a significant number of changes made to the draft version of the report.
“The APPG examined the FOIs and notes with alarm that there have been hundreds of alterations and some amount to changing the meaning of the report. This raises concerns that the final report seeks to mislead.”
A subsequent review by a team led by Baroness Cumberlege also questioned the changes made between the draft and final copy saying the revisions “created different impressions in the mind of the reader”.
Image: Nicky Gubbins has long campaigned for recognition that Primodos caused her malformations
When Sky News revealed these changes in July 2020 the Medical and Healthcare Products Regulation Agency (MHRA) told us: “It may not be obvious because of the redactions but the expert working group chair and the Commission on Human Medicines endorsed the changes to the report.”
MPs also note that a team of Oxford academics led by Professor Carl Heneghan obtained the raw data used by the expert working group and produced opposite results, finding “there was an association between Primodos and malformations”, and criticising the approach made by the expert working group.
The MPs also say new studies have added strength to claims of a link including a study in Sweden, revealed by Sky News in December.
They are now calling on ministers to commission an “independent review” review.
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Image: Members of the APPG including its chair Yasmin Qureshi, middle, and vice chair Jacob Rees-Mogg, front left
The new report said MPs have “heard countless stories of sorrow and anger after a lifetime spent needlessly and irreparably damaged both physically and mentally”.
It added: “Mothers continue to be burdened by the guilt of having taken the tablets.
“Parents of the affected children, now in their 70s and 80s, are deeply anxious about what will happen to their adult children when they are no longer there for them.”
Yasmin Qureshi, chair of the APPG, said the report calls on the government to “finally do the right thing”.
“The report brings together the crucial parts of the historic research that has exposed the scandal that is at the heart of this campaign. This is the evidence that the government chooses to ignore.
“The report sets out the new scientific evidence which was recently published by a team led by Swedish scientist Professor Danielson.
“It asks, why does the government continue to rely so heavily on the expert working group report, when the findings, and how it came to achieve those findings, are so flawed?”
Image: More than 100 claimants lost a bid to sue Bayer for damages in 2023
Marie Lyon, chairwoman of the Association For Children Damaged by Hormone Pregnancy Tests, said: “I await a positive response to our request for a completely independent review of all evidence.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We remain hugely sympathetic to the families who believe that they or their children have suffered following the use of hormone pregnancy tests.
“It is right that the government is led by the scientific evidence and the government’s position remains that, after reviewing the available evidence, it does not support a causal association between the use of hormone pregnancy tests and adverse outcomes in pregnancy.
“We are not closing the door on those who believe they have been affected and have committed to reviewing any new scientific evidence which may come to light.”
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Watch the Sky News documentary Primodos: A Bitter Pill
The German manufacturer of Primodos, Schering, now owned by Bayer told Sky News: “Since the discontinuation of the legal action in 1982, Bayer maintains that no significant new scientific knowledge has been produced which would call into question the validity of the previous assessment of there being no link between the use of Primodos and the occurrence of such congenital anomalies.
“In 2017, the expert working group of the UK’s Commission on Human Medicines published a detailed report concluding that the available scientific data from a variety of scientific disciplines did not support the existence of a causal relationship between the use of sex hormones in pregnancy and an increased incidence of congenital anomalies in the new-born or of other adverse outcomes such as miscarriage.
“The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency supported that conclusion.”
