i've been saying the numbers mean folks they matter the u.s. has over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crimes happen each day. eighty five percent of global wealth you want to be all for rich eight point six percent market saw a thirty percent rise last year some with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and third quarter rose to twenty thousand dollars. china's building two point one billion dollars a our industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you need remembering what one person showed you can't afford to miss the one and only boombox. the worst drug disaster in history would spread through more than forty six

countries and produce up to 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 shoulder fillin age twenty three gave birth to her first child her husband was with her at the time and it was quite a day out. and then i lay back and was relaxed and some of the somebody whispered into my ear is your husband not all right and i was white awake and i said. what's got what has happened to my baby is anything vall you know she said just. let's say. without any emotion oh yeah he's just cut short arms and i like a child would have asked possibly i said and take all. anymore and this current

grow this will be like it to snow. 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. i'm away to get to. 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 all region 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 have followed.

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 and talent boys 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 the company ignored the early warning signals in their midst know that spirit grid cells when action didn't investigate didn't talk to the mom didn't go to the hospital didn't look the medical records didn't contact experts there were multiple opportunities for groups all to cope holds us to short none of which i can . nine months after the first deformed baby was born grown and all launched

a little died on to the german market under the brand name country gun going in thousand gress of 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 so little my became a second best selling drug next to aspirin. but linda's shoulder hill 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 video kinde lens 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 are shot on and those kids were hidden away at the time in the small villages and he asked in 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 through my 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 look i'm a. new factory 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 the weser only learned about the circumstances of her birth by reading her father's bestselling autobiography i haven't got any arms and i had only nicks and my dad said it was like little flower bags. from my arms and from i let 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 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 they're probably everywhere else. in canada another armless baby was spared by a poor ukrainian family in a 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 alan i took one look and i thought no wonder nobody wants. and the next i went to see him percy had a bath and dressed and hid and looked perfectly. well although in favor of taking him away with. 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 plan there 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 instead 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 follow the 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 a limit on to 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 this 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 all ready to go through all of the drugs ready 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 and canada. in germany going 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 nutty 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 thalidomide and received a bonus for every thought in my pills sold worldwide the drug was such a success for granted. that i started making money hand over fist. it was all a percentage of profit. from modestly our. having so much money pouring in he could have bought himself a new messiah does every month bond sixty one really he's making twenty times his salary in terms of a percentage so he's getting this massive massive bonus he's become a ludicrously rich man on the back with limited. what would a man want that with a history of wartime experimentation strong personality a massive income running on the selves of them on 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 gruntal to investigate to get to the bottom of it to put warnings on the

tribe to withdraw to take all sorts of course and so i did know that they just focused on selling more the drugs and it really was some time tell prescott hold of it. and they knew it was going to go public but they finally backed off and agreed . joining me every thursday on the alex simon short and i'll be speaking to us in the world of politics. i'm sure. i'll see you then.

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 spring of nineteen sixty one they had taken the drug off the market then they would have spat half the bait . nico of on glazzard was disability weren't so severe but as a young child niko had trouble adjusting to his short arms. is fine to continue if you can find on because it is completely false. it's you know yet as he's feeling the find in venice from presented some of the. pope's own form of the connote. one stiver from the fearless arts to under the kindergarten bomb to care to notice how far. on. down from your hugs to. you know least globish ninety four years.

who are. moving. in england louise mason didn't see her parents and three siblings for months at a time. i was that's a no most of the time my parents had other children there's no way that they could leave them in 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 christmas easter every quality was like getting to know your brothers and sisters again.

in new york tends to scatter when alvin laws parents decided the best way to get their arm listened to cope with life was to turn his tones into fingers for hours alvin was given manual task to perform with his feet. i grabbed it having no are the exact rather simple disability that's a 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 very. very frustrated but i think it was the character that was built by my parents especially by life there. 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 wave bigger problems than i am 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 found 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 nature 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 vic's 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 or in writing that threatens libel 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. and john f. kennedy awarded the highest civilian honor an american can receive to dr francis kelsey so kill c. really. for 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 my own body more all the more doesn't have any are artificial or not so 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 tol may start doing me any good. and i was like shot. i was our blood that was. we know what we're doing you don't.

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 life and yeah 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 grown in 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 charge grown in executive 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 nine hundred seventy one so in the nineteen seventies grin atoll had as the chair of a man convicted of mesmo slavery was. 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 granting thousand owner 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 a chorus of. well canada loudly celebrated its one. hundred birthday and nine hundred sixty seven police and they are my family's suffered in silence a few parents had committed suicide others became alcoholics and some were having severe psychiatric drug. 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 he can't go to school they don't have such a thing as integration and our going what's integration he's

a kid in instability 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 alvin but soon afterwards he ran into a reaction his teachers expected and feared i came home and i was very upset because somebody had called me. i had never heard that word before it was never used in this house. it was never used in this neighborhood but i go to school there was no kids called me so i had to run home and i was a little freaked out mom called 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 we're 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 institution up until then i was not one of the crowd but after. i was picked on. louise escape the hostility of our classmates when her father took her out to participate in publicise the events for his campaign i was used as a as opposed to go. david mason's campaign succeeded in increasing by six times. signs the drug companies original offer to the parents i did pay a heavy pot. shots. if i hadn't paid the price to fill it in 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 young sheltie 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 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 can a 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 little modern 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. accepting me. i have problems to interact with me because i have short arms it's their problem it's not mine. nobody could see coming that false confessions would be that prevalent in this population a profitable. any interrogation out there for bill c. is threat promise threat promise threat while i lie the process of interrogation is designed to put people in just that frame of mind. make the money comfortable make them want to get out and don't take no for an answer don't accept their denials she said if i would. send a statement that i would be home by that time the next day there's

a culture of odd accountability and police officers know that they can engage in misconduct that has nothing to do with all the cry. you know world of big part of a lot of things and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the door on the bath and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks. u.s. veterans who come back from war often tell the same stories. we're going after the people who were killing civilians they were not interested in the wellbeing of

their own soldiers either there are already several generations of them so i just got this memo from the circular defenses officer says we're going to attack and destroy the government and in seven countries in five years americans pay for the wars with them money others with their lives if we were willing to go into harm's way and willing to risk being killed for a war then surely we can risk some discomfort or uneasiness for.

at least. i. promise is yellow vests movement shows no sign of letting up in twenty nine t. holding more nationwide protests against the government. in the stories in the wake funeral was held for the victims of the apartment block collapse in the russian city of magni course which claimed thirty nine lives and germany needs tougher goals in the saw them see because that's the demand from the country's interior minister after migrant gang recently attacked locals including children on the u.s. government shutdown enters its third week as the rabbi over funding from the border war drags.