Thalidomide apology insulting, campaigners say

Sculpture of a thalidimide child in Stolberg Germany erected by the Gruenenthal Company which produced thalidimide

 

 Thalidimide children of the fifties

 Often, upper and lower limbs were affected. 

 This picture was arranged by the Associated Press in the fifties. I don't understand what it was supposed to represent

These children were not quite so affected. No two victims were exactly alike

 

The company which produced  thalidomide "insulted" those affected by the drug by issuing an "insincere" apology, campaigners have said. The drug, sold in the 1950s as a cure for morning sickness, was linked to birth defects and withdrawn in 1961.

German-based Gruenenthal has issued its first apology in 50 years, but said the drug's possible side-effects "could not be detected" before it was marketed.

But the British Thalidomide Trust said any apology should also admit wrongdoing. Nick Dobrik, a member of the trust's national advisory council, said it "should be an unreserved apology, not a conditional apology".
"We feel that a sincere and genuine apology is one which actually admits wrongdoing. The company has not done that and has really insulted the thalidomide victims."
 
Martin Johnson, the trust's director, told the press the news that the manufacturers were starting to acknowledge responsibility was welcome but they were still trying to perpetuate the myth that no-one could have known of the harm the drug could cause when there was, he said, much evidence that they did know.
"So we welcome the apology, but how far do they want to go? It's no good appologizing if they won't open discussions on compensation. They've got to seriously consider financial compensation for these people."

By the time the drug was pulled from the market, more than 10,000 babies worldwide had been born with a range of disabilities caused by the drug. This included shortened arms and legs, blindness, deafness, heart problems and brain damage. There are between 5,000 and 6,000 sufferers still alive but that for every thalidomide baby that lived there were 10 that died.

Harald Stock, Gruenenthal's chief executive, issued his company's apology at the unveiling of a bronze statue symbolizing a child born without limbs because of thalidomide.

"We ask for forgiveness that for nearly 50 years we didn't find a way of reaching out to you from human being to human being," he said at a ceremony in the western German city of Stolberg, where the firm is based.
"We ask that you regard our long silence as a sign of the shock that your fate caused in us."

Mr Stock said the company regretted that the potential for thalidomide to affect the development of foetuses "could not be detected by the tests that we and others carried out before it was marketed".

Gruenenthal itself has previously paid compensation to survivors of the drug, many in Germany, and has voiced regret over the issue - but has not admitted liability. In the early 1970s, it agreed to pay 100m Deutschmarks into an official fund for German thalidomide survivors and was given permanent legal indemnity by the German government.

Since the original fund money ran out, continuing compensation payments have been made by the government. In 2009 the company added a further 50m euro one-off endowment. Compensation claims are still outstanding, including one key class action in Australia, which saw thalidomide survivors win the right to have their case for compensation heard there.

Within months of thalidomide first going on sale in Germany, doctors were writing to Gruenenthal asking about side effects that were appearing in their patients. The company's stock response was to say it was not aware of side-effects and that these must be down to the individual patient.

The company muffled the alarm bells - its apology now is next to worthless. It changes nothing about the company being negligent in putting the drug on the market. Gruenenthal also tried, and almost succeeded, in dragging the legal process past the German statute of limitations to escape responsibility.

Almost everything Gruenenthal has done relating to thalidomide has been disgraceful and unacceptable and that includes the sculpture they erected of a thalidimide victim. They should have shouldered full responsibility at the time. An appology now is so inadequate it is ridiculous.
The drug is still used today under strict controls to treat some bone marrow cancer patients.