Actually, Chemie Grünenthal remains silent still on adjusting compensation for inflation and the dreadful effects on the victims – the men and women in adulthood, many now without parental support.
CG did not just remain silent. It brought forth the drug thalidomide on 1 October 1957, from very murky origins indeed. It licensed its manufacture worldwide as a safe sleeping drug for mothers in pregnancy. One of the licensees was the British whisky company, Distillers, which put "Distaval" on the market as a tranquilliser in April 1958 and marketed it until 1962. Chemie Grünenthal was reckless. It had not tested the effect on pregnant women or animals to see if it could cross the placental barrier. It ignored early warnings. The wife of one of its own employees had given birth to a baby without ears 10 months before it puts its poison on the market. It made no difference. Nor did warning signs of deformed births and nerve damage from Australia.
It produced sales leaflets for doctors stressing the drug's safety. It engaged – bribed might be a better word – compliant doctors who vouched for it though they did not know how it worked. A testimonial appeared in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology signed by Dr Ray Nulson Cincinnati, Ohio.
Eventually, he gave evidence in Germany that he had not tested the drug on pregnant women at all and was not even the author of the article. It had been written for him by an employee of the renowned American company, Richardson-Merrell in Cincinnati, a CG licensee. And the employee, like others around the world, had relied on Chemie Grünenthal which had itself done no tests on the effect on a foetus .
It was fifty years ago Sherri Finkbine, mentioned in posts earlier in the history of this blog, went to Sweden to secure an abortion because she could not get one in the United States after having taken thalidomide while pregnant.
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