Street roots
9
Sept 16, 2011
TH A LID O M ID E, from page 8
travelled to Germany about 40 times in
recent years to support the German
campaign for more adequate compensation •
(most receive just over 1,000 euros a month
from a government scheme which
Grunenthal also contributes to). Their
lobbying efforts on the continent have been
far from dull. “We tried to gather crowds
everywhere we w ent We marched on Angela
Merkel’s flat in Berlin. We went to a debate
in the German Parliament to try to throw
Smarties on the floor. It was a bit like
Keystone Cops. We had sweets falling out of
our pockets on the way in, so security
twigged and we were given a police escort
out of there.”
Nick was part of an international team
(including campaigners from Canada and
Sweden) granted an audience with
Grunenthal representatives three times last
year. He remembers the disappointment
when it became clear the meetings were
merely stónewalling exercises conducted by
a lawyer and public relations person. “It was
a big moment,” he recalls of the first get-
together at a hotel near Cologne airport.
“We sat down with them, but it soon became
quite clear they weren’t interested in making
any (international) payments. They were
playing with us. We wanted tq speakto
people who could make decisions, not
people who came with written statements
and a duty to, report back to the board. With
Diageo, there was a willingness to cooperate.
But with Grunenthal, I don’t sense theÿfeel
their responsibility, even today. I think
they’re waiting for us to die.” .
Monika Eisenberg is one of the German
campaigners living with the limb-shortening
effect of tiie drug. She lives in Cologne, but
every time another thalidomide victim dies
she heads to Stolberg to light candles and
place flowers outside the gates of
Grunenthal headquarters. “When I hear
about someone dying at the age of fifty, I get*
añgry aboutit,StiTë tells-m e.“ When I héâY “
someone has killed themselves, because of
the pain they are in, I get angry about i t So
yès, I go with a candle to what we call the
mother-house of Grunenthal. I try to get
flowers, even if it is not Sunday. I want them
to remember they have a responsibility. This
company can’t imagine how people arc.
suffering. We are now in the last third of life,,
and we want to live in dignity and
independence. I would say that if this
company could take proper responsibility, it
could be a relief for them as well. This
situation is not good for their souls. “
From his Cambridgeshire office, Dr
Martin Johnson, a former Royal Air Force
officer who runs the Thalidomide Trust, sifts
through mountains of paperwork. He is
writing a book on the apparently sinister
origins of Grunenthal; the company
responsible for what he calls “the biggest
disaster ever in medical pharmaceuticals.”
Johnson was “startled” to discover
connections to Nazi nerve gas research. He
believes it was first produced as a possible
antidote to nerve toxins such as sarin, which
was developed by Otto Ambros, a Nazi
scientist who joined Grunenthal after the
war.
thalidomide will always be an important part
of our history.”
Bom without a leg and wheelchair-bound
through osteoporosis, Steve Sinclair
calculates he has had almost 40 operations
over the years. His mother, who took just
three thalidomide tablets, was told her boy
wouldn’t last more than a few days after
birth. “As a teenager she was told if I got to
21, I’d be doing well. Here we are 50 years
C O U R T E S Y O F BIG
ISSUE S C O T L A N D
“Thalidomide is, I’d say, 90 percent
guaranteed to be a product of the nerve gas
research program from Nazi Germany,” he
says; “There are tell-tale traces that the
people who wrote the patent had access to
human testing results. We’ve got a little
team working on the patents. Some of the
papers have almost certainly destroyed so
we can’t get to 100 percent (certainty). But
there’s a whole family of chemicals with the
same antecedents as thalidomide that were
developed, beyond any question, as part of
the nerve gas program.”
Grunenthal would not put anyone forward
for interview to address the drug’s origins òr
international compensation claims but did
give a statement. “Grunenthal believes that
it always acted responsibly in the
development of thalidomide and that its
actions were consistent with the state of
scientific knowledge at the time and the
prevailing standards for pre-marketing and
testing of the pharmaceutical industry in the
1950s.... It is a matter of great regret to us
that such research was not able to identify
thè teratogenic potential of thalidomide in
advance of its use worldwide. We are acutely
conscious of the suffering that the product
caused to the victims and their families and
especially their mothers. The tragedy of
on, and hundreds of us have thoroughly
enjoyed proving everyone wrong,” says
Steve, I
Steve, who lives in the Scottish borders,
runs through the huge extra costs of
adapting his house and running a specially
modified car. But there is, he says,
something more important than money.
Proper atonement from Grunenthal might
bring some peace to his parents. “Mv
mother took the drug on medieal advice,
assuming it was safe. Like many other
parents, she’s carried guilt around with her
for many years, a guilt she needn’t have. It
was not her fault She didn’t know. But
somebody somewhere at Grunenthal knew,
and they put money — the need to market
this wonder drug — ahead of safety. So yes,
there’s a lot of anger there.
“I live with the results of their negligence
every day. The company seems to want to be
absolved of the blame without doing
anything about i t Sorry is the word I want
to hear.. They have a responsibility to
acknowledge what has happened and help
us. You can’t move forward until you’ve dealt
with the wreckage of the p ast”
Thalidomide Justice
Campaigners Nick
Dobrik, Michaelina
Argy and Guy
Tweedy
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