Between 1961 and 1962, 3300 babies were born in The Uk and in Germany, without arms or without legs, sometimes with neither. Their appearance, this particular birth detect, was not something common like a cleft palate. Phococaemia occurs as a birth defect very rarely, one in a hundred thousand births. Each year, two babies might be born with missing or shortened limbs. These babies might have three or four fingers, attached at the shoulder, or toes where their knees might normally be. The luckier ones might only be missing a few fingers or toes.
Something else had happened at this time – the introduction of a new wonderdrug, a painkiller without side effects like drowsiness. The drug, Thalidomide, was considered so safe that it was recommended for pregnant mothers. And tens of thousands of the pills were prescribed.
Very quickly, the drug was withdrawn. From its introduction in 1961 to its in 1962 it was available, in the Uk for just months. And the birth defects stopped. But the company that had developed and marketed the drug, did not accept responsibility, and continued to sell it.
Finally in 1970 after a long campaign of investigative journalism by The Times in London, the sufferers were offered compensation, on a sliding scale depending on how many limbs were missing, whether they had functional hands at the elbow or at the shoulder, how many fingers they had.
These details might be distressing for some, but they are old stories to me. When I played on the beach as a child, I saw children carrying buckets and spades , with three fingers attached at the shoulder. When I went to Oxford, to the University,
In 1998 the use of Thalidomide for treatment of a skin condition caused by leprosy, and in 2006, for treatment of multiple myeloma (cancer), was approved by the USA Food and Drugs Administration (FDA).