The Thalidomide Catastrophe
How it happened, who was responsible and why the search for justice continues after more than six decades
Martin Johnson, Raymond G. Stokes, Tobias Arndt. Onwards & Upwards Publishers, 2018.
REVIEW
A fascinating and disturbing book that traces the tragic story of the Thalidomide scandal, reminiscent in some ways of the UK’s current Post Office “Horizon Scandal” (where it took the UK state decades to face up to the truth, overturn criminal convictions (miscarriage of justice) and end a huge State-sector cover-up). Somewhat the reverse with Thalidomide, however, as there have never been criminal convictions for the guilty.
The Thalidomide disaster was not solely British. Surprisingly, the last baby (known to have been) born with Thalidomide damage was born in Soth America in the early 2000s, despite Thalidomide being banned in the UK in the early 1960s. In South America the drug has been used to ‘treat’ Leprosy. It is estimated that globally 25,000 babies were born with Thalidomide damage (many later to die of complications) and 150,000 killed directly by Thalidomide – as a sort of unintended chemical abortion.
The drug Thalidomide was marketed under many trade names and registered under many Patents. Bizarrely, in some senses, Thalidomide/Contigen looks like a “drug” searching for something to cure. Unsurprisingly, wherever it has been tried it has been a case of a ‘cure worse than any disease’.
The following review is abstracted from an London Evening Standard review in July 2018 (with thanks), penned by Geoff Adams-Spink. Section headers added by Christian Comment:
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SHOCKED GERMAN PUBLIC
In 2007 Adolf Winkelmann’s movie Eine Einzige Tablette (“Just a Single Pill”) was shown to a shocked German public on national television. The film documented the launch of the drug thalidomide, which caused thousands of babies to be born with birth abnormalities, often with missing or extremely shortened limbs.
The company responsible for inflicting one of the world’s worst man-made disasters of the 20th century, Chemie Grünenthal, was understandably not keen on the story, conflicting as it does with the company’s own, sanitised version of history. A court order was applied for to prevent the film’s broadcast. Thankfully, it was denied.
Tobias Arndt watched the movie and was so appalled at the unfolding collusion between industrialists, politicians and lawyers that he started to research the issue himself. The next day he introduced himself to Nicholas Dobrik — a British thalidomide survivor who was drawing together an international alliance of those affected — and offered his assistance. It’s unsurprising, then, to find Arndt’s name on the cover of The Thalidomide Catastrophe, since his excellent research credentials were put to good use by the book’s other two authors, Professor Raymond Stokes, an industrial historian, and Dr Martin Johnson a former director of the Thalidomide Trust.
GRIM JIGSAW
Piece by piece the authors have put together a grim jigsaw that the family owners of Grünenthal hoped would never see the light of day. Not since the Sunday Times Insight team’s book, Suffer the Children, has such a thorough and painstaking attempt been made to document the lies that have denied justice to thousands. Fittingly, the paper’s former editor, Sir Harold Evans, has written the foreword.
Specifically, the authors have avoided sensationalism — no, thalidomide wasn’t developed in the Nazi death camps — but have carefully laid the facts before the reader. Grünenthal had access to a number of scientists and industrialists, many of whom had extremely dubious war records, and some of whom were convicted war criminals.
NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE?
Grünenthal’s claim that it had no warning whatsoever that its wonder drug produced irreversible nerve damage in those who took it (polyneuritis), let alone birth defects, is firmly laid to rest. So, too, is the claim that the drug had been exhaustively tested by the standards of the time.
The legal case against the company’s executives took several years to compile. But Grünenthal’s patriarchal head, Hermann Wirtz, struck gold by engaging a defence lawyer who would soon be made justice minister in North Rhine Westphalia; this created not only a classic conflict of interest but a superb opportunity to influence the decision to have the criminal trial ended “in the public interest”.
Arndt spent months ferreting through archives until he unearthed a battery of smoking guns — often records of telephone conversations which, in other countries, would have remained undocumented. Asked why such inflammatory evidence was left behind, Arndt — German-born himself — explained that detailed record-keeping was a national obsession.
WONDER THERAPY?
Far from being consigned to the pharmaceutical dustbin of history, thalidomide has been put to a variety of uses, some of which have undoubtedly been of benefit to its creators — from treating leprosy to HIV/Aids and cancer. Spectacular claims have once again been made and more people damaged. “Thalidomide is first hailed as a wonder therapy for the treatment of some new disease, until gradually the problems of the side-effects emerge, yet again, and the drug moves on to yet another new disease.”
In spite of the myriad obstacles placed in the path of truth, Johnson, Stokes and Arndt have insisted on telling the compelling and gruesome story of thalidomide. This is our history — it must be told in our lifetimes.
Geoff Adams-Spink is a journalist and chairman of the Thalidomide Society. The Thalidomide Catastrophe by Martin Johnson, Raymond G Stokes and Tobias Arndt (Onwards & Upwards, £11.99), buy it here.
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CHRISTIAN COMMENT
Greed was perhaps the chief cornerstone of the Thalidomide tragedy. In that sense we are reminded of 1 Timothy 6: 10 – the love of money …… Author Martin Johnson is a Christian and is involved with the Hesed Association: https://www.hesedassociation.com/
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