Thalidomide's Legacy

Contergan, a sedative that contained thalidomide, caused severe birth defects in 10,000 children worldwide when it was introduced on the market 50 years ago.

The drug was sold over-the-counter and was also used by mothers-to-be as a remedy for morning sickness, but had devastating consequences for the developing embryo. Thalidomide babies developed abnormally short limbs -- typically flipper-like fingers emerging from the shoulders. Other infants had eye and ear defects and no legs.

A two-part TV film on public television, called "A Single Tablet" in German, dramatized one of the worst blunders by a drug company. Warner Home Video Germany picked up the US rights to the film and released it as a double DVD under the new title "Side Effects" on Friday, Nov. 9.

Thalidomide linked to birth defects

Grünenthal, a private German drug company with an annual turnover of 800 million euros ($1.2 billion), started selling thalidomide in October 1957 and only withdraw it as a sedative when findings linking it to birth defects were published by the German press in November 1961. The company's owners are among the 30 wealthiest families in Germany with a personal fortune estimated at about 3.3 billion euros according to Manager Magazin.

Widukind Lenz, a Hamburg pediatrician and geneticist, was one of the first to link thalidomide to the sudden surge in birth defects in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He noticed that thalidomide babies were virtually non-existent in communist East Germany, where Contergan had not been approved for use.

Most cases in West Germany

West Germany was hardest hit by thalidomide, with about half, or 5,000, of all cases worldwide. Contergan was sold in almost 50 countries, but not in the United States, where the FDA regulatory authorities refused to give it the green light.

Thalidomide was sold in Canada, however, and it was FDA newcomer Frances Kelsey, a Canadian physician, who had resisted intense pressure to put thalidomide on the American market. She was later decorated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 for her courage.

In 1970, Grünenthal paid a total of 100 million deutschmarks ($75 million, 51.1 million euros) in a settlement with Germany's thalidomide victims

Shortly after the civil settlement, the criminal trial of Hermann Wirtz, the company owner, and eight Grünenthal executives was abandoned in December 1970 on the grounds that their guilt was impossible to establish.

The German government had contributed a matching amount to the relief fund, which paid modest monthly sums to the survivors until it dried up 10 years ago. Since 1997 the government alone has continued to pay survivors up to 545 euros per month.

Grünenthal is under no legal obligation to continue compensating the victims and has never issued an apology to thalidomide survivors or their families.

Higher compensation outside Germany

Other countries, including Canada, Britain and Sweden, had ensured more generous compensation. Now in their mid to late 40s, the survivors often suffer from arthritis and back problems resulting from a lifetime of awkward movement. Some of them are forced to retire early for health reasons and many live on social welfare.

The two-part TV dramatization tells the story of a fictitious lawyer whose wife takes "just one tablet" of Contergan, and gives birth to a daughter with no arms and only one leg.

"What's the matter? Show me my baby," says the mother, Vera Wegener, amid a ghastly silence in the delivery room. "Don't worry, you can put it in an orphanage," a doctor replies.

Another doctor calls the "deformed" daughter "horrible."

"In those days people did not speak of a 'disability,'" Adolf Winkelmann of German public broadcaster WDR television told the German DPA news agency. "The terms they used were pretty insensitive."

Part one of the film had showed the lawyer gradually becoming convinced that Contergan was responsible for his daughter's condition. The second part of the TV movie re-enacted the legal battle for compensating the victims.

Producers won legal battle to air TV film

The film producers had spent 18 months in court with Grünenthal executives and the real-life lawyer who led the compensation fight against the drug maker. Both the company and lawyer claimed they had been misrepresented by the film. The dramatization was changed and now comes with disclaimers insisting that the characters do not represent actual people.

Several weeks ago, Germany's Federal Constitutional Court struck down temporary injunctions aimed at keeping the TV film off the air. It was aired on prime time last week with each episode drawing about 7 million viewers.