oscar the grouch and just reminder the top story we're following for you here today police in new zealand say 5 people have died in a all canuck volcanic eruption at a popular tourist destination number of people up and injured for mercy services say it's currently too dangerous for them to return to the are. you watching the news from berlin coming up next our documentary film on the drug solidified a nightmare without and i'm sorry martin thanks for being with us. in charge of the famous naturalist and explorer. to some liberation comics on the front line wants 250th birthday we're embarking on a voyage of discovery. expedition voyage on t.w.a.

. the worst drug disaster in history would spread through more than 46 countries and produce up 220000 badly deformed babies world war. but historians today single out one birth in 1961 that changed the course of history in hamburg germany linda shoulder feeling age 23 gave birth to her 1st child her husband was with her the time and he was quite damp. and then i lay back and was relaxed and some i mean somebody whispered into my ear. and not all right and i was here white awake and i said. what's got what has happened to my baby is anything ball you know she said just. let's

say. without any emotion oh yeah he's just got short arms and i like a child would have asked possibly i said and i'll take rowing anymore and shit this card grow this would be like it is now. and then i felt like i was beaten to death. a doctor gave the 1st time mother some friendly advice just get another child. like forget about him you know. poem a way to get a part time shortly afterwards when his husband arrived and gave her some bad news he'd been keeping from her 6 weeks earlier his sister had given birth to a baby with similar deformities it looks alike like our child be something that is the same all ridgen the same difficulty the same problem in the background and

we'll find it and we'll search and we won't stop until we fall and nothing was the was. how. the epidemic of deformed babies began 5 and a half years earlier on christmas day 956 with the birth of the 1st victim. in a small town of aachen germany a mother had taken a new drug called full of a mind being developed by a local drug company can be grown into her husband like other grown in 1000 boys had taken home a sample which he gave to his pregnant wife the baby would be the 1st of 6 for the my babies possibly more born to grin and 1000 workers in the years ahead but the company ignored the early warning signals in their midst no that's true grit old women actually going toe didn't uninvestigated told mom to go to the hospital

didn't look the medical. records didn't context goods there were multiple of chilis for group talk to cup holders last a short non-image 2nd 9 months after the 1st deformed baby was born grown and all launched alone abide on to the german market under the brand name contraband going in 1000 aggressive sales force whose motto was succeed at any cost continue to promote the drug contraband they claimed it was a safe sedative especially for pregnant women suffering from morning sickness sales zoomed and so little my became a 2nd best selling drug next to aspirin. but linda shielded helen and her husband carl ham and were determined to find out what caused their son's short arms months later they were no closer to finding an answer i know my husband had times when he said we don't make it i think we have to get up and i said giving up.

her husband soon contacted a professor of obstetrics dr video kinde lens who had received a few reports of deformed babies my father and professor lance they travel to germany in their road folks wagon and they went from one small village to another and asked are there any children with short legs or shot. and those kids were hidden away at the time in the small villages and she cast in restaurants and bars and the local police officers everybody certain are not in our town and then he showed a picture of me and said this is my boy and can i please repeat my question and then they said well at the end of the road there has been a very sad incident and then he went there and drink the darn shot 1st thing he did was showing the pictures means that this is my son diaz who has had a kid like this and the people burst into tears and and children including my children's were. pulled to the day of flight literally.

in england the limit was being sold under the brand name distal by the country's largest liquor manufacturer the distillers company as in germany distillers had received reports of deformed babies but had been assured by green and thought that the drug was completely safe. louise mason was one of 533 little my babies born in england over a 6 and a half year period the weser only learned about the circumstances of her birth by reading her father's bestselling autobiography i haven't got any arms and legs and my dad said it was like a little flower buds. you know from my arms and from my lips my dad had a look at me. and. he said my god you're not going to let this baby live. and they said yes my mom was only 21

and she was advised by doctors to put new y. and concentrate on having another family. after 11 days in hospital her parents took louise to an institution for handicapped children where she would spend the next 18 years of her life but louise was fortunate her father had not asked another doctor to end her life because i'm questionable about midwives and doctors were killing disabled children. in the hospitals and the delivery rooms on a large scale in britain. in germany. and if there are probably everywhere else in canada another armless baby was spared by a poor ukrainian family in a rural cisco. years later calvin law learned how horrified his natural parents

were when he was born ultimately it was the paternal grandmother who didn't want to have anything to do with us she said you're not going to bring that devil baby home with you he's he's deformed because of a curse. the armas baby wasn't taken home after doctors warned he would never lead a normal life but after 6 weeks an elderly couple jack and hilda law who had already raised their own children volunteered as foster parents and got their 1st look at alan and i took one look and i thought no wonder nobody wants. and the next time which seemed course they had a bath interest and hid and took their toll. while i was in favor of taking him away with greater family members or but. it was a baby with nobody wanted i'm sure we're going to. turn out ok. my

life story shifted the moment that sophie and peter my birth father gave me up. that that that is a problem found chapter shift in my life because i went to live with the laws. my life became this life. back. in cincinnati ohio and deeply religious roman catholic couple with 6 children were expecting another normal birth my mother's story is that when i was born they were not at all prepared they docked. said joy your baby doesn't have any legs. so she says that she took the baby me and she said well eileen is my 4 leaf clover. i have

a sibling who told me that my father cried and that when he came home he handed me to my siblings and everyone got very upset and they said take it away. someone ripped off the blankets and said x. not a baby or something to that effect that's not our sister. that was what i was told. as a young child. paypal. eileen crone and was one of several flitter my babies born in cincinnati where an american drug company richardson merrill had their headquarters like the german drug company merrill promoted the drug as completely safe even during pregnancy like green and merrill had no evidence to back this up. merrill applied to the

federal drug administration in 1960 for approval to brings a little mite onto the american market and was allowed to conduct clinical trials on patients across the country now it wasn't a clinical trial at all what it was was a marketing campaign trumped up to look like a clinical trial michael magazine is an australian lawyer and former investigative reporter who spent years researching the thalidomide disaster what merrill wanted to do was to familiarize doctors with a drug so that once they got approval they would have doctors all ready to go through with a drug raid to prescribe it like crazy the little mind was now being sold in close to 50 countries worldwide in 1961 in australia dr william mcbride delivered 3 solidify babies in a few months he alerted distillers the british distributor thalidomide but they claimed they never received his warnings and pregnant mothers like wendy role

continue to take the lead in mind for morning sickness but when her daughter lynette was born wendy immediately knew something was wrong when she was born there was just deadly silence in the in the room and i just knew that something must be wrong and nobody said a word it was just lads our lives and anyone finally they said to me that there was a problem with that lyn had no i'm still links and. you know and they gave her to me in to that she doesn't look very different to what she does nancy and sticking up there in the cutest little faces. and. and that i you know it's just like a slacker not me i suppose you know but they know it you know it when you looked at her and thought with you you've got to love it you can't you know you can tell him so you're better than i said we think she's got some brain damage but we don't know

what state and i just looked over not that system thing now and you can skip brandon says but hopefully. they told me that i should put her in a home and she would be dead in 6 months. weightlifter there from way quote we went to right. just to get ahead to read it all and then come back to pick her up and that was really hard going back to the hospital to pick her up. in germany grown in 1000 advertising campaign is paying here huge dividends the company's owner and executives were making fortunes overnight especially heinrich mokhtar going in 1000 research director. during a war mokhtar served as a natty doctor developing vaccines which were tested on jewish prisoners in the book and vowed concentration camps many of whom died after the war mokhtar joined

grown and 9 years later he invented thalidomide and received a bonus for every thought in my pill sold worldwide in germany where the pill sold at a rate of $15000000.00 a month 5000 children of it born therefore from stolberg germany morley safer report in november of 961 just 300 miles from here in hamburg dr very good runs the director of human genetics at the university of hamburg found an astounding increase in the number before the babies it used to convert or a little was because it had 66000 letters to german doctors declaring the drug. 66000 list from atop his own you know it's. there was a period where they'd been told that the drug was largely responsible for the epidemic of malformations and deaths and they're telling doctors they drug use earth and it really wasn't until press got hold of it. and they knew it was going to go public but they finally backed off and agreed. on november 28th 1961

a day after the thalidomide scandal many headlines in west germany. it was withdrawing the drug from the market even at 1st light of the spring of 1961 i had taken the drug off the market that they would have spared half the bank. in england louise mason and didn't see her parents and 3 siblings for months at a time. i was left alone most of the time my parents had other children there's no way that they could leave them in my nan because my grandpa was old so they just stopped coming. i went home 3 weeks a year. for week one week in summer making christmas i'm a big east and every holiday was like getting to know your brothers sisters again.

alvin law's parents decided the best way to get their arm listen to cope with life was to turn his toes into a single for hours album was given manual tasks to perform with each seat. grab it having the warmth of the exact rather simple disability very complicated disability and i'd be lying if i didn't say it was a lot of work a lot of work a lot of time spent by myself very long and very afraid very frustrated but i think it was the character that was built by my parents especially by a lifer. that allowed me to not really think that i was all that different. it's not an easy thing to get dressed but. again it goes back to the basic theory of my life and that is to i have someone look after me or do i look after myself.

but more than anything i think it's a mindset you know that ok there is a lot of people in our world that have wave bigger problems than i have so that i have to spend a little extra effort putting my clothes on so for. the moment i started using my tolls and my feet and my legs was the same moment i ceased to have a disability. in the united states there would have been thousands of the little my babies like al the law except for the actions of one woman dr francis kelsey a canadian born doctor and pharmacologist had just joined the federal drug administration when she received an application to bring thalidomide onto the american market here was a drug that the looked like it should be no problems but at the same time there was

just a feeling that to do something in the delayed or of the absence of. it was a cause of concern the application came from richardson merrill one of america's oldest drug companies known years ago for its best selling product mix cough drops merrill put on the pressure they contacted the f.d.a. 50 times they went behind her back to those periods they can find a better in writing the threatened level proceedings they pushed and pushed and pushed and she was resolute she was unbelievably tough. but i know that we're all way most indebted to dr kelsey the relationship in the hope that all of us have the right children in august 1982 president john. f. kennedy ordered the highest civilian honor an american can receive to dr francis kelsey well dr kill she said i need to know more i want to have more i demand to have more the canadian government simply approved it and i believe that was below

the standard of what should have been expected from an industrialized. first world. country like very civilized canada phillida might continue to be sold in canada for 4 months after it was withdrawn from the german market the food and drug directorate in ottawa issued no warnings to the public while the drug remained on pharmacy shelves. most of the miners don't use artificial limbs today but eileen cronan is an exception she wears artificial legs every day to get around . i was born with both legs missing from the nice down according to my mother i did it back to the legs pretty quickly. and if you have. you know artificial legs a lot of things go wrong you've got to go around conducting life and yeah you know you've got a skin infection and you've got to put you know leg on when you're going to do me i

put the leg on i guess that's not always the best thing to do but. that's what i do. in australia artificial limbs proved to be useless and even dangerous for lynette row these legs would this on leading to walking but. terribly dangerous because every step she took she had to rope from saugus not the least little thing on the path she would just fall either strike again. lynette required the full time care of her devoted parents. for years her mother's nightly routine was always the same. and you know getting up in the north and tuning you're getting here in the. sort of it's a constant thing that. i talk to some young mothers sometimes and they say they

don't know i see nothing doing it. because of that thing sure. in march $967.00 the owner and 8 executives of grown in the german drug company were charged with criminal negligence premeditated bodily harm and manslaughter. among the defendants was heinrich mokhtar the nasty doctor who made a fortune inventing the not in mind one german historian has looked at a short list of grown file staff from the early sixty's and he said it's absolutely astonishing that a small company should have such a concentration of convicted war criminals on a stock unusual even by the standards of christ was. another chop grown in zech it was audio amorous and that's the war criminal known as the devil's chemist ambrose was convicted of war crimes he committed at auschwitz for which he served 4

years in prison but after the war the chemist found no shortage of employers including dow chemical j. peter grace and the u.s. army's chemical corps before he became chairman of grain and 1000 board of directors in 1971. the man who hired nancy war criminals like ambrose and mokhtar was grinning owner herrmann verts. verts was a member of the local nats the party in his hometown before the 2nd world war a service for which he was handsomely rewarded by and all of the various family companies have actually thrived during the war years because they'd had a contract from the german army to buy soap and toshi and. they had been supplied with slave work of they have been basically handed to come and it was all a play both by the jewish owned or jewish control the use of no america was the personal

lawyer for a good 1000 owner herrmann verbs but in december 966 noid burger resigned suddenly became justice minister in the province where the trial was being held graft house chief defense lawyer. ended up with a government responsibility for overseeing the conduct of the trial. that kind of strength and one german observer of the day said this makes us look worse than the banal republic. away from the trial a secret deal was worked out between granting 1000 owner hammond birds and the provincial government the secret deal was only revealed when the trial was dramatically stopped after 2 and a half years under the deal volumes of the prosecution's evidence would be sealed from public view. in return for having all the serious criminal charges against its owner and executives dropped the company agreed to pay the victim's lifetime pensions ranging from $30.00 to $140.00 a month as well as

a small one time payments but in order to collect the money the little mite has had to agree not to launch any further suits against going and fell so taken as a whole the trial was a glorious if unlucky triumph. really scope from the disaster really to be largely given the sky and the scope of the tragedy. well canada loudly celebrated its 100th birthday and 967 these amazing mind families suffered in silence a few parents had committed suicide others became alcoholics and some were having severe psychiatric. that's a little my children were now school age but the question that plagued medical and educational authorities was what type of school should they enter school says wait he's got no arms he can't go to school they don't have such

a thing as integration on and out of on what's integration he's a kid needs to go to school he needs to learn and it's to be educated he can write he can read what else do you need the school finally agreed to take. in england $197.00 families of the little my children were suing distillers the british company which had distributed the drug distillers made a ridiculously low offer of compensation and warned that the money would be paid out only if all parents agreed to the lifetime deal 5 families refused the offer they were led by david mason a wealthy london art dealer and father of louise i came under tremendous pressure i received threats all my life i had a police guard for a period of time i had anonymous phone calls i had a letter. you know threats from parents her father as well publicised opposition to the compensation created problems for louise and her care institution up until

then i was not one of the crowd but after that. i was picked on and that's when i felt like i was alone in amongst a crowd. louise escaped the hostility of our classmates when her father took her out to participate in publicize the events for his campaign i was used as a as opposed to go not only because i was his daughter because i had the extremes of the disability unfortunately i had great impact. david mason's campaign succeeded in increasing by 6 times the drug companies original offer to the parents i did pay a heavy price. but. if i hadn't paid the price for filling the my dues wouldn't have got the compensation when they got the compensation so i think it was worth. a little my shoes were becoming teenagers.

now the north thrived in school and by the time he was a teenager he seemed to fit right in. as far as the whole scene of school has been i think that's the most important part is being accepted by people if you're not accepted they won't be. worth anything it was about acceptance totally and it was about asking 2 or 3 girls out on dates to which i heard are you kidding i want to date just like any 16 year old but i didn't have that good fortune and of course i used to blame it on the girls and maybe it was part of them but i know it was mostly me i thought and i was going to have to be a 9 i didn't think that i was going to go on dates i didn't know what was going to happen and that that's not how it happened i had a great high school run i mean you know i had a lot of fun my friends i had too much fun and if you're like me and my friends you drive around and look for pools and you go skinny and that's both we did. for

most the little miters getting behind the wheel of a car was the road to independence and freedom. the ways mason was determined to drive no matter how difficult it was for her does this equate to get behind the wheel and do up her seat that. i just. want to drive these trucks are not shocked tonight sable parsons somebody like. tests which. was exactly the same said one hours there's no difference became so natural something driving an actual transfer in most of my life. and. give me the power to become wheelchair.

what the little mind is didn't know was that the drug was still in circulation though grown until i had stopped producing the drug so little my have made an early comeback in the mid sixty's when other suppliers began manufacturing in india and some south american countries where it had become the drug of choice for treating leprosy. so i don't walk into. my own body or have a good body. was more found himself in the public limelight when he became his problems a spokesman for handicapped children. was. released i think. over the years alvin would make appearances on telephones across the country just i think. i'm going. to. a.

lot better than either. because a lot of havoc up 1st. the people get it wrong. they look at all the law and they think god it's tremendous how you can do things which is. why i suppose if you look at your feet it's tremendous but these are life these are my hands too and i have been doing it forever these are not tremendous faith this is the only thing that i've got so when i pick up a car and i have a drink you know. wow what a thrill. i do think thing and thank you. life wasn't so kind for another it's a lot of my poster child louise mason continued to endure bullying from other kids at her institution for the handicapped but one day when she was 13 she was raped by

another student. louise went to a nurse for help i was shaking i was tearful and. i took my underwear off and i saw blood and i tried to explain to them what happened they did nothing. nothing to. lose enjoyed 5 more years of fear and loneliness before finally leaving the institution then like any 18 year old louise immediately started to enjoy the freedom enjoy college life. all its parts and just share. it was something. i went to the park regularly trying to regulate i got into trouble then it was pressure of boys newman.

i'm a is so you have got to fight 1st of the student union. and got well but. unlike louise mason who rarely saw her mother during childhood young children hilland formed a close bond with his mother from birth and her unwavering support and encouragement were critical in his career decision she never lost hope sure she said que everything you want to achieve in your life you're going to achieve it i have absolutely no doubt and where night when i turned up with it with the idea that. that i wanted to be a doctor everybody told me you should not it's not a very good idea you cannot do that you will have severe problems she said son do your own thing if that's what you want to do you're going to match jani is now an emergency room doctor in switzerland i don't consider my condition as a major issue i mean i'm not a few little margin for a spot on the 1st but i'm a man i'm trying to be a good doctor and trying to be

a good husband and i'm the father i'm a lover and i have short arms and that's it and if people have problems it's accepting me or i have problems to interact with me because i have short arms it's their program it's not mine after years of waiting suffering and fighting for compensation canadian victims of the little mind are finally getting the help they need from the federal government yesterday the health minister said survivors of the drug will receive lifelong pensions individuals can now start feeling comfortable about their future they know they have a. good amount of money coming in every year they can support them and help them. i don't know what your lives are like sometimes life can really be rough on people i understand that i get it i've been in real life alvin law is a motivational speaker who's influenced audiences in north america and australia with his message of hope is special to more than 2000000 youngsters who heard his

top speaking is the best thing i could have ever cited if you're helping kids and they need to have somebody come in and tell them that it's going to be ok but i get such tremendous joy out of doing there is nothing in my life that makes you happy. nothing in college eileen cronin fell in love with andy a graduate student in economics i was in love very definitely a person. although i really had a boyfriend you know i immediately was drugged or you know her vases and intelligence. and her wit we moved in together. and we got pregnant very quickly. very quickly. i was wracked with worry all my life about having a child because i didn't know for sure that my mother had taken the limo ride i was

kind of panicked it started just settle a man oh my god i'm going to have a baby i don't even know if i can have a baby i don't know if the baby is going to have legs or not have legs or something else but also really i did not know how i was going to carry a baby in my back and so they did the ultrasound all of your sound technician zoom dan right away he found foot one foot blew it up took a picture and wrote phillips and then other foot hands fingers and. i was crying and all the injured started laughing we knew that he would be ok.

when his 1st wife sandy became pregnant alvin law was terrified about what the future held when i saw him coming out of there with 2 arms and. 2 hands or 5 little fingers on the track. i didn't care what bradley was at all or if it was a she or he were to get a good matter. it was just the most tremendous feeling of my son. to do it again. you know. going back i worried a lot about how i was going to play ball with. you know your arms to be there you know you know arms to listen you don't need arms to be your father at all unfortunately too many fathers that have watched it realize that. they were forget that that's true you just have. and be there for him. that surprised me. the tears and i'm not sad of just how.

big he was little hands. during the summer boy sometimes but that's not how life works right louise mason had been a single mother for 10 years when she received a christmas card from an old boyfriend i'd heard that louie haven't been very well and kind to a christmas card and calm down and had allowed up at the park reignited if the best way to describe it. kiss me goodbye and butterflies. i was sort of floating on on a cloud and he told his wife he was leaving. she helped impact. and then he moved down in. the being together since. then. it's really really fast and i can i were we communicate he would go there without even talking. and i think we i think we were made for each other to be

honest. in 1907 the thalidomide victims association of canada faced an agonizing choice a small american drug company celgene wanted to bring thalidomide onto the market as a treatment for leprosy and cancer but needed the approval of the federal drug administration in washington celgene sought the support of canadian victims for its application if the little i can change for the better the life of a child with cancer that lets produce it and let's give it to these children and let's make their lives better and if it's because of the price that we had to pay good then maybe we can have some solace in knowing that it wasn't all in vain in july 998 the u.s. food and drug administration licensed athol live in my base drug but in both the tightest rules on its use for any drug in history officially celgene got f.d.a. approval for thalidomide to treat lepers

a miniscule american market but the drug company quickly began focusing on it as a treatment from multiple myeloma a cancer of the blood cells and got approval for that use in 2006. in australia and d r g o the british company that bought distillers were co-defendants in a multi-million dollar class action suit centered on the net row case melbourne woman lynette row is suing the drug's manufacturer grin and tell the company what of the case heard in germany where it's never successfully being sued but the victorian supreme court today dismissed that application this was an application boy the company that made the lead annoyed the worst drug in history of medicine to have an armless legless woman who has no money and doesn't speak german if she wishes to have it done in court have to move to germany for the next 4 years so we had diaz and groom tazo defendants grins how have these never given never. made

a thing i never can say fought to the bitter end i would choose the steelers took a much more compassionate sensible way to approach which was once convinced of a strength of the climb i settled with when good in town didn't pay a cent we had to get up and fight the age that they're every day in court were being credible damage the growing toward. to leave the now family the settlement amount was a multi-billion dollar some but it was a sum sufficient to provide lynn with 1st class care for the rest of it off it really has dramatically transformed the rise lives grin and refused to pay a cent of the multi-million dollar settlement the 2 months later held a press conference so it could be a college eyes to its victims for the 1st time in 50 years that nobody knows but they don't want story to go the 1st chance to get out a longish to get through in front managed to mention. that that's not because she

just wouldn't say i liked it because you know it was a longish proposition aside from just them and i should also be in. by ones that looked at f.m. they couldn't have gone into something shocking we had to get up and fight aids day every day and cope with the incredible damage they've grown toward doing. to lean in their family. grins i was still a private company the votes family i wanted to die just as it did in 160 does not have show shareholders demanding returns the vets family's personal fortune has been variously estimated at the 23000000000 euros it would not drive that family into. penury or bankruptcy or poverty to loosen the purse strings and behave in a more generous fashion toward suppose. good and sell no longer makes the enemy and continues to deny most little matters outside germany any compensation no survivors

feel they received an acceptable apology. refused to be interviewed for this film. today celgene continues to prosper from the sale of its followed in my derived drugs to treat multiple myeloma. prior to getting approval to bring its version of the drug back onto the market in 1998 the american drug company was valued at $100000000.00. today celgene value has soared to $100000000000.00. the original thalidomide drug is easy and cheap to manufacture and continues to be made and distributed by several drug companies and governments to treat leprosy unfortunately it is mostly used in countries that often do not enforce rigorous controls and regulation as a result a little my injury babies i still.

remember matters world wide void by the success of the net roll case every new efforts to fight for compensation as they battle with the continue side effect of. this young woman from gas the city has a dream just one of the myself lives. freely and sing and have my own life my own job. no fear. but in the constraints of the gaza strip a society dominated by men it's almost impossible to see still while family foetuses

together. 3000. w. today's world still. going to politics business religious claims the beat up people of the islamic revolution under the tongue of. the boltons up making its initial flirtation with capitalism. strikes in states of emergency or it sinks into chaos market such remarks in college them to work harder and they will was at the start of neoliberalism. campus against business. hence the plane trip. a car suspended. for starters an era that defines only manage to

play 1970 but the big move to today's stretch december 23rd w. . the. plane . this is deja vu news live from berlin a volcano erupts in new zealand at a popular tourist destination at least 5 people are dead and authorities fear more casualties are like. also coming up more than 13000 dead and a 1000000 displaced our correspondent those the front line of the conflict in ukraine as the russian and ukrainian leaders appear to be.