The fight for justice after thalidomide, 50 years on

Irish families devastated by the anti-nausea drug were awarded a maximum of £21,000. It was never enough, they tell Helen O’Callaghan

IRISH thalidomide survivors feel they’ve hit a brick wall. It’s just over 50 years since German pharmaceutical company Chemie Gruenenthal withdrew the notorious morning sickness drug, having accepted under pressure that it was the common denominator in a spate of birth defects in Germany.

In Ireland, thalidomide was imported under a variety of trade names. The most popular sold 51,000 units here in 1961. Chiefly prescribed to pregnant women (a group for whom the drug was never tested) in the late ’50s and early ’60s, expectant mums had no notion the nausea-combating sedative was highly toxic to unborn babies. Depending on when in pregnancy it was taken, thalidomide caused miscarriage, eye and ear defects, damage to major organs and body systems. The main deformity was shortened or absent limbs.