German Drug Maker Apologizes to Victims of Thalidomide
Source: NY Times
Decades of campaigning by victims of thalidomide, a morning sickness drug, have taken a new turn, with the first apology in 50 years to the victims and their families by the drug’s German manufacturer — and an incensed rejection of the apology as too little and too late from many of those it was intended to placate.
The apology was issued Friday by Harald Stock, chief executive of the Grünenthal Group, a family-owned pharmaceutical company that marketed the drug in the 1950s and early 1960s. It was withdrawn in 1961 after it was linked to birth defects, including shortened arms and legs, and in some cases no limbs at all, that campaigners say affected 10,000 babies around the world, mostly in Australia, Canada, Europe and Japan.
The apology came in a speech Mr. Stock delivered in the Rhineland town of Stolberg, the company’s base, at the unveiling of a thalidomide memorial, a bronze statue of a limbless child.
Addressing the victims and their families, he said the company wished to “apologize for the fact that we have not found the way to you from person to person for almost 50 years.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/world/europe/grunenthal-group-apologizes-to-thalidomide-victims.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Grünenthal, shaken from a half century of denial by a class-action lawsuit in Australia, had made “some kind of statement that they are emotionally connected to our suffering. They’ve had 50 years to make billions of dollars while we struggled and our parents committed suicide. And now, they’re apologizing for not saying anything. How dare they do that and think it’s going to be enough?”
--Berrisford Boothe, 51, an associate professor of art at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA
As someone who saw many of these families, and heard their struggles to have their children try to adapt to a shocked community, I can only add my anger about the years gone, and the compensation never given to the thousands of victims. Grünenthal is just another greedy corporation that turned its back on the tragedy it had created.
Once again props to Dr Frances Kelsey of the Food and Drug Admin. for keeping thalidomide out of the US at that time
Did they figure they were cool so long as they apologized faster than the Church paroled Galileo?
Here's some pictures of what this company is finally apologizing for(disturbing images warning) :
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personal to me as well. And, yes, I figured you put the warning there for the reason you stated.
(I see you edited out picture #2 of the little boy without arms. I want to reassure you that it didn't bother me in the slightest, in fact I was heartened by the reminder of a pleasant memory of my father.
