twenty thousand badly deformed babies worldwide. but historians today single out one birth in one nine hundred sixty one that changed the course of history in hamburg germany linda szell to helen age twenty three gave birth to her first child her husband was with her the time and he was quiet. and then lay back and was relaxed and some and somebody whispered into my ear is your husband not all right and i was here white awake and i said. what what's got what has happened to my baby is anything wrong 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 on take anymore and she scarred grow

this will be like it is now. and then i felt like i was beaten to death. a doctor gave the first time mother some friendly advice just get another child. like forget about him you know. poem a way to get about shortly afterwards linda's husband arrived and gave her some bad news he'd been keeping from her six weeks earlier his sister had given birth to a baby with similar deformities it looks alike like our child there must be something that is the same origin 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. how.

the epidemic of deformed babies began five and a half years earlier on christmas day nine hundred fifty six with the birth of the first victim. in a small town of germany a mother had taken a new drug called for little mite being developed by a local drug company can be grown into her husband like other grown in thousand ploys had taken home a sample which he gave to his pregnant wife the baby would be the first of six other than my babies possibly more born to grin and thousand workers in the years ahead but their company ignored the early warning signals in their midst know that spirit green zones when action didn't investigate didn't talk to the mom didn't go to the hospital didn't look at medical records didn't contact experts there were multiple opportunities for group talk to cup holds us to short no limit second nine months after the first deformed baby was born grown and launched the lynn abide on to the german market under the brand name contra gone good in thousand aggressive

sales force whose motto was succeed at any cost continue to promote the drug cardigan they claimed was a safe sedative especially for pregnant women suffering from morning sickness sales zoomed and the little my became the second best selling drug next to aspirin. but linda's shoulder helen and her husband carl hammond 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 viduka nd lenz who had received a few reports of deformed babies my father and professor lance they travel to germany and their road folks bargain and they went from one small village to another and. asked are there any children with short legs or shut down and those

kids were hidden away at the time in the small villages and he asked and restaurants and bars and the local police office and everybody said no not in our town and then he showed a picture of me and said this is my bari 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 showed first thing he did was showing the picture of means that this is my son do yourselves have a kid like this and the people burst into tears and and children thalidomide children's were. called to the day our flight literally. in england 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 that the drug was

completely safe. louise mason was one of five hundred thirty three little my babies born in england over a six and a half year period louise only learned about the circumstances of her birth by reading her father's bestselling autobiography i haven't got any arms. and my dad said it was like little bugs. in 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 say yes my mum was only twenty one and she was advised by doctors to put me away and concentrate on having another family. after eleven days in hospital her parents took louise to an institution for handicapped children where she would spend the

next eighteen years of her life but louise was fortunate her father had not asked another doctor to end her life because unquestionable. that made wives and doctors were killing disabled children. in the hospitals in the delivery rooms on a large scale in britain in germany and if they're probably everywhere else. in canada another armless baby was spared by a poor ukrainian family in rural cisco. years later alvin law learned how horrified his natural parents were when he was born ultimately it was the perturb 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 ease he's deformed because of

a curse. the armless baby wasn't taken home after doctors warned he would never lead a normal life but after six weeks an elderly couple jack and hilda law who had already raised their own children volunteered as foster parents and got their first look at al and took one look and i thought no wonder nobody wants. and the next i went to see him personally had a bath and dressed and hid and looked perfectly. well although in favor of taking him oh boy. 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 profound 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 six children were expecting another normal birth my mother's story is that when i was born they were not at all prepared and the doctor 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 four 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 that's not a baby or something to that effect that's not our sister. that was what i was taught. as a young child. people. eileen cronan 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 one nine hundred sixty for approval to brings the 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 mann isn't it is an australian lawyer and former investigative reporter who spent years researching these a lot of my disaster what merrill wanted to do was to familiarize doctors with a drug so that once they got approval they would have doctors already to go through with a drug raid to prescribe it like crazy. during this time richardson merrill handed out two and a half million dollars to my pills to thousands of doctors in the united states in canada. in germany grown in thousand advertising campaign was paying huge dividends the company's owner and executives were making fortunes over night especially heinrich mukhtar going in thousand research director. during the 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 grin and nine years later he invented to live in mine and received

a bonus for every thought in my pills sold worldwide the drug was such a success for growing them. that i started making money hand over fist. it was all a percentage of profit. from modestly are. having so much money pouring in he could have both himself and you must say this every month one hundred sixty one really he's making twenty times his salary in turnover percentage so he's getting this massive massive bonus he's become a ludicrously rich man on the back of the mod. what would a man want that with a history of wartime experimentation strong personality a massive income riding on the selves of the mud what would one expect that he would do when confronted with reports of nerve damage and other side effects but it is not surprising to me that there was not a rush of grandchild to investigate to get to the bottom of it to put warnings on the tribe to withdraw or to take all sorts of course and so i did know that they

just focused on something more the drugs and it really was some time till the press got hold of it. and they knew it was going to go public but they finally backed off and agreed. to pay for it didn't happen this is the phrase that has become a mantra for many people but as more and more people get involved in visualizing the world around them is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves changing. last sunday. morning of each week at the host for senor he said it's not that it seems that all the shouting against.

you will be against you know circle included cliche you would say that i was going to have. to show. them the tea come calling. mr west i am more sure. on november twenty eighth one thousand nine hundred sixty one a day after the thalidomide scandal made headlines in west germany. it was

withdrawing the drug from the market even if first latest the spring of nineteen sixty one. had taken the drug off the market that they would have spent half the bases. on glazzard was disability weren't so severe but as a young child niko had trouble adjusting to his short arms. and his findings angsty says can too few combined on because it is complicated also gets annoyed as he's feeling the find in venice from joining some of the most it's been appointing men cops on foot off the conneaut. and fairly sized to underpin dolphin bone to care to notice how far far. down from our hunts to our boys far you know at least globish going to florida. or not. born.

in england louise mason didn't see her parents and three siblings for months at a time. i was let alone most of the time my parents had other children there's no way that they could leave them with my nan it was my crime i was old so they just stopped coming. i went home three weeks. for week by week in the summer making a christmas easter. if the policy is not change now your brothers sisters again. in your kansas catch a one thousand laws parents decided the best way to get their arm listen to cope with life was to turn his toes into fingers for hours alvin was given manual task

to perform with the seat. granted having no arms or the exact rather simple disability or very complicated disability and i'd be lying if i did 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's a lot of people in our world that have weighed bigger problems than i have so that i have to spend

a little extra effort putting my clothes on so what. 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 a lot of my babies like ellen 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 looked like it should be no problem but at the same time there was just a feeling to do something in the demeter of the absence of the. cause of concern the application came from richardson merrill one of america's oldest drug companies known years ago for its best selling product vix cough drops meryl

poured on the pressure they contacted the f.d.a. fifty times they went behind her back to those periods they complained about her and rotting threatens the proceedings they pushed and pushed and pushed and she was resolute she was unbelievably tough. but i know that we're all at most indebted to dr kelsey the relationship to the hope that all of us have for our children in august one thousand sixty two. john f. kennedy awarded the highest civilian honor an american can receive to dr francis kelsey so kill c. really you know. who the mother because. i come home from the playground one day my mom says honey good news you're going to get arms dear i mean you just remember a day like that right i thought we were going shopping you know arms or us i don't know. i was very confused they had hooks and they were made of metal and plastic

and wood i mean i couldn't take off my shoes i wasn't allowed to use my feet can imagine how weird that was. so this became an interesting life half of my life was being elven law the kid with no arms the other half of my life was this terrible victim of the little guy. i lost my sense of who i was right stick these arms around me on all the body more all the models on how many are artificial or not. and why don't why why would i leave them when there was no good reason not one good reason. to use them for years i told them hey you are doing me any good. and i was like shut up. i was a blunt it was you know we know what we're doing you doth. most the other 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 from the knees down according to my mother i did it down 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 your life and yet you know you've got a skin infection and you've got to play your leg on when he couldn't 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 margin nine hundred sixty seven the owner and eight executives of growth all the german drug company were charged with criminal negligence premeditated bodily harm and manslaughter. among the defendants was heinrich mokhtar the natty doctor who made a fortune inventing fellow to mind. another chop green and it was amorous

a nasty war criminal known as the devil's. chemist ambrose was convicted of war crimes he committed at auschwitz for which he served four 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 green and sells board of directors in one thousand nine hundred nineteen seventies quinto had as the chair of a man convicted of mesmo slavery. in a man who hired nancy war criminals like ambrose and was owner. verts was a member of the local nattie party in his hometown before the second world war a service for which he was handsomely rewarded by. use of it was the personal lawyer for a good one thousand or herrmann verts but in december nine hundred sixty six burger

resigned suddenly became justice minister in the province where the trial was being held. defense lawyer. ended up with a government responsibility overseeing the conduct of the trial. away from the trial a secret deal was worked out between going in thousand herrmann birds and the provincial government the secret deal was only revealed when the trial was dramatically stopped after two and a half years. in return for having all the serious criminal charges against its owner and executives dropped the company agreed to pay the victims lifetime pensions ranging from thirty to one hundred forty dollars a month as well as a small one time payment but in order to collect the money the little mite has had to agree not to launch any further suits against her and so taken as a whole the trial was morris look the trial of her until.

well canada loudly celebrated its one. hundred birthday and nine hundred sixty seven peace and maybe my family's 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 some experts recommended schools for the handicapped while others advise the regular education system. in new york since the scatman alvin law's parents had run into opposition from the local grade school when they tried to enroll him school says wait he's got no arms you can't go to school you don't have such a thing as integration and our going what's integration he's a kid he 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 this school finally agreed to take but soon

afterwards he ran into a reaction his teachers expected and fear i came home and i was very upset because somebody had called me. but i'd never heard that word before it was never used in this house. it was never used in this neighborhood that i go to school there was no kids called me so i had to run home and i was a little freaked out you know call me down and that's when our first remember hearing those words that some people are born with black hair and some people are born with blond hair and you were born. in england one hundred ninety seven families of the little my children are 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 the five families refused the offer they were led by david mason a wealthy london art dealer and father of louise now i came under tremendous pressure i received threats on my life i had a police guard for

a period of time i had anonymous phone calls i had anonymous letter. you know threats from parents her father as well publicised opposition to the compensation created problems for louise and her care institutions up until then i was not one of the crowd but often. i was picked on. louise escape the hostility of our classmates when her father took her out to participate in publicized events for his campaign i was used as a as opposed to go. david mason's campaign succeeded in increasing by six times the drug company's original offer to the parents i did pay a heavy pot. shots. if i hadn't paid that price facility my dues wouldn't have got the compensation when they got the compensation so i think it was well. unlike louise mason who rarely saw her mother during

childhood yann shell to hill and 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 she will she said cure everything you want to achieve in your life you're going to achieve it i have absolutely no doubt and when i when i turned up with their 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 yon is now an emergency room doctor in switzerland i don't consider my condition as a major issue i mean i'm not a thalidomide and for a start on the first but i'm a man i'm trying to be a good doctor and trying to be a good husband and i'm a father i'm a lover and i have short arms and that's it and if people have problems x. accepting me. i have problems to interact with me because i have short arms it's

their problem it's not mine. dallas. dallas. at dallas. adalia what i wasn't doing. when we got garrett over here we care the music with us. we are here with a drag here. by you looking to get rid of those who are not go away who will not die quietly. real the heart of what we do is the truth.

of the truth of this to submit will. my will for something and this is their. roles going to say of course of business with the most is to a couple. listening with. a lot of slow slow slow slow slow motion i am.

ok see that look i know it feel but you also look at them out on the funniest diplo it's most it's a small shows just the fluid souls of. you when you must. move. i do. i think the democrats are much mood to negotiate with the republicans or president so i think people are going to have to acknowledge that the united states over the next couple years is going to be consumed even more so by our internal our turtle bickering in affairs.

that. the week's biggest stories from artsy days ministerial melt on the british prime minister bottles to save her brags a plum on her own government in a week of resignations recriminations on second referendum call. for last game piece to consider the national interest and get it that backing the withdrawal agreement represents a huge and damaging five year deal that is already dead in the what's. really declassified documents reveal of the cia experimented with a so-called truth serum on prisoners.