The Thalomide Epidemic: The Families Fight Back | No Limits (Full Documentary) | Only Human

[Music] the worst drug disaster in history would spread through more than 46 countries and produce up to 20,000 badly deformed babies worldwide but historians today single out one birth in 1961 that changed the course of history in Hamburg Germany Linda Schulte fillin age 23 gave birth to her first child her husband wasn't with her at the time and it was quiet there and then I lay back and was relaxed and some and somebody whispered into my ear is your husband not alright when I was here wide awake and I said what what's got what has happened to my baby is anything wrong yeah she said just mmm let's say without any emotion yeah he's just got short arms and I like a child would have asked possibly I said and aren't they growing anymore and she said this can't grow this will be like it is now and then I felt like I was beaten to death a doctor gave the first-time mothers some friendly advice just get another child like forget about him you know throw him away forget about him 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've found [Music] the epidemic of deformed babies began five and a half years earlier on Christmas Day 1956 with the birth of the first victim in the small town of Aachen Germany a mother had taken a new drug called thalidomide being developed by a local drug company cami grünen thought her husband like other green and Thal employees had taken home a sample which he gave to his pregnant wife the baby would be the first of six father to my babies possibly more born to grin and Thal workers in the years ahead but the company ignored the early warning signals in their midst none of that spurred green until 20 action curanto didn't investigate didn't talk to the mom didn't go to the hospital didn't look at the medical records didn't contact experts there were multiple opportunities for granite tile to cut the whole disaster short none of them were taken nine months after the first deformed baby was born grinning Thal launched the Luna bite onto the German market under the brand name contra gone grinning thousand ggressive 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 sails zoomed and thalidomide became the second best-selling drug next to aspirin but Linda Schulte Hillen and her husband Karl Hammond were determined to find out what caused their sons short arms months later they were no closer to finding an answer I know my husband had times when he said we won't make it I think we've to give up and I said I'm not giving up her husband soon contacted a professor of obstetrics dr. V token lens who had received a few reports of deformed babies my father and professor lens they traveled Germany in their Road Volkswagen and they went from one small village to another and asked are there any children with short legs or shot arms born and those kids were hidden away at that time in the small villages and he 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 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 brings it on it showed the first thing he did was showing the picture of means that this is my son do you also have have a kid like this the people burst in tears and and children telling to my children's were were pulled to the day of light literally [Music] in England fill-in imide was being sold under the brand name disavowed 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 grin and thought that the drug was completely safe Louise Mason was one of 530 the lid amide 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 best-selling autobiography I hadn't got any arms and I hadn't got any legs and my dad said it was like little flower bugs and you know from my arms and from my legs my dad had a look at me and he said my god you're not gonna let this baby live and they said yes my mum was only 21 and she was advised by doctors to put me away and concentrate on having it 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 it is unquestionable that midwives 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 Liege Belgium the mother of an armless baby decided her daughter's future was hopeless this was the final day of the thalidomide trial the baby's mother and four accomplices were charged with the murder of the child born without arms at last the jury retired to consider the effort not guilty all five acquitted what relief and what a reception they got [Music] in Canada another armless baby was spared by a poor Ukrainian family in rural Saskatchewan years later Alvin 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 this she said you're not gonna bring that devil baby home with you he's 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 Alvin I took one look and I thought no wonder nobody won't for ever and the next time I went to see him of course they had a bath and rest and he didn't look too bad at all well I wasn't in favor of taking him talk the way we've raised our family and that was it but it was a baby with nobody wanted him so what he can do turned out okay 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 [Music] [Applause] in Cincinnati Ohio a 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 the doctor said joy your baby doesn't have any legs so she says that she took the baby me and she said well Ilene 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 told as a young child painful Eileen Cronin was one of several thalidomide 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 grinning Thal Merrill had no evidence to back this up Merrill applied to the Federal Drug Administration in 1960 for approval to bring thalidomide onto the American market and was allowed to conduct clinical trials on patients across the country now it wasn't a clinic clinical trial at all what it was was a marketing campaign trumped up to look like a clinical trial Michael magaz Anik is an Australian lawyer and former investigative reporter who spent years researching the thalidomide disaster what Meryl wanted to do was to familiarize doctors with their drug so that once they got approval they would have doctors all ready to go thrilled with the drug ready to prescribe it like crazy during this time Richardson Merrill handed out two and a half million solidify pills to thousands of doctors in the United States in Canada in Winnipeg dr. Claude Murphy was one of those doctors we received it in quantities like a thousand pills a doctor was given free to pass out to his patients there was tremendous pressure on all over the world to get this wonderful new drug on the market and the companies that were producing it even after the recant came questions about its safety kept right on pushing it dr. Murphy had good reason to be concerned about the emerging thunder to my disaster as he awaited the birth of his fourth child his wife Peggy had been prescribed thalidomide by another doctor I'd warned the nurses at the hospital we could be in for trouble and we will dren to the delivery room and went into the doctor's dressing room I turned looked through the window and I saw the nurse looking with horror at the at the stretcher you know and realized there was something wrong so I burst into the room and he he'd come a breech you see because of this lack of legs of a small bump and there's large head there he was stuck with her on the stretcher with their just his bottom so the nurse got me a pair of forceps and I slipped the forceps over is after coming ahead and delivered him and if I hadn't been there he never would have made it so as soon as he was born he started screaming no hesitation at all she's down never stop screaming since I'd have to say I was British devastated by the whole thing I never dealt with anybody who had like physical deficiencies before and then I had to to break the news to the other kids who did that the next day or so it was surprising well they said um dad you got to bring that baby home [Music] the lid amide was now being sold in close to 50 countries worldwide in 1961 in Australia dr. William McBride delivered three thalidomide 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 Rowe continued to take the lid amide for morning sickness but when her daughter Lynette was born when they immediately knew something was wrong when she was born it 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 loud silence and anyway finally they said to me that there was a problem and that I didn't have no arms or legs and you know and they gave that to me and she she doesn't look very different to what she does now she had sticking up here and the cutest little face and but I yeah it's just like it was like a nightmare and I suppose you know but then I you know when you looked at her and thought with you you've got to love it you can't you know you can't do anything about it better they said we think she's got some brain damage but we don't know what extended and I just looked at her and I thought it's this little thing no I was amazed and it's just got brain damage as well what her fish got they told me that I should put her in a home that she would be dead in six months we left her there for a week while we went away just to get our head around at all and then to pick her up and that was really hard going back to the hospital to pick her up in Germany grinning thousand izing campaign was paying huge dividends the company's owner and executives were making fortunes overnight especially Heinrich Mook - grinning thousand during the war Mukhtar served as a Nazi doctor developing vaccines which were tested on Jewish prisoners in the book and vile concentration camp many of whom died after the war doctor joined grinning Thal nine years later he invented the lead amide and received a bonus for every third amide pills sold worldwide the drug was such a success for grinning pal that they started making money hand over fist and Heinrich Mook - who was on a percentage of profits moved from being modestly affluent to having so much money pouring in he could have bought himself a new Mercedes every month by 1961 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 thalidomide what would a man like that with a history of wartime experimentation strong personality a massive income riding on the sales of flawed mind what would one expect that he would do when confronted with reports of nerve damage and other side effects and it is not surprising to me that there was not a rush at Grand Isle to investigate to get to the bottom of it to put warnings on the drug to withdraw to take all sorts of precautions they did none of them they just focused on selling more the drug in Germany where the pills sold at a rate of 15 million a month five thousand children have been born deformed from Stolberg Germany Morley Safer reports in November of 1961 just three hundred miles from here in Hamburg dr. Varick on Lentz the director of human genetics at the University of Hamburg found an astounding increase in the number of deformed babies he deduced that contig and/or thalidomide was the cause was clearly going to take something or someone extraordinary to force grin and health withdraw the drug and that didn't happen until lens contacted them he spoke to Heinrich Moktar and said I have these very strong suspicions I have 14 cases of both malformations where I think it could only be thalidomide I think your order withdraw the drug looked a wouldn't withdraw it instead Grune enthuse response to lens was to send out reassuring letters to German doctors grinning tile sent out 66,000 letters to German doctors declaring their drug was safe sixty-six thousand letters to German doctors I mean you know it's that was a period where they've been told that their drug was likely responsible for an epidemic of malformations and deaths and they're telling doctors their drug is safe and it really wasn't until the press got hold of it and they knew it was going to go public that they finally backed off and agreed on November 28 1961 a day after the thalidomide scandal made headlines in West Germany grinning Thal announced it was withdrawing the drug from the market even if its latest the spring of 1961 they had taken the drug off the market then they would have spared half the babies Micheal Vonn glezos disabilities weren't so severe but as a young child Nico had trouble adjusting to his short arms as he find in the Ainslie his kin do figure vine don't as it as competent to he also be Cinderella the feeling of Ireland in on Venice from peony so meeting our mouths shut soon whenever boring and pops our own foot off technology went is five of America fear decides for under latina of bounds of let another heart farmer and cutter alpha me angst abaya in early globish violently foolish [Music] in England Louise Mason didn't see her parents and three siblings for months at a time I was left alone most the time my parents had other children there's no way that they could leave them with my nan because my grandpa was ill so they just stopped coming I went home three weeks a year for a week one week in the summer while making Christmas or Easter every holiday was like getting to know your brothers and sisters again we had a lot of fun when I was a kid we had a lot of fun I had a very good childhood I mean clearly when God made me he didn't have somebody making handstands on his mind so the handicap came annoying from time to time even as a child he was completely free he was completely fearless for him it was natural I don't see myself as as disabled let's put it this way I have short arms and this can come very annoying from time to time but I'm not disabled to that I feel inferior or that I think I cannot do certain things in Yorkton Saskatchewan Alvin laws parents decided the best way to get there armless son to cope with life was to turn his toes into fingers for hours Alvin was given manual tasks to perform with his feet now granted having no arms isn't exactly a rather simple disability it'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 being very lonely and very afraid and very frustrated but I think it was the character that was built by my parents especially by my parents 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 do 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 okay there's a lot of people in our world that have way 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 toes 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 thalidomide babies like Alvin law except for the actions of one woman dr. Frances 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 that there was something in the data or the absence of data that 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 Vicks cough drops when Kelsey was extraordinarily determined brave tough resilient and she kept knocking back Merrill's application she kept telling them that there was not the testing to back their application that it was substandard they never managed to persuade her their drug was safe and fit for sale Merrill poured on the pressure they contacted the FDA 50 times they went behind her back to her superiors they complained about her in writing they're threatened liable proceedings they pushed and pushed and pushed and she was resolute she was unbelievably tough I know that we're all us most indebted to dr. Kelsey the relationship beat the hopes that all of us have for our children in August 1962 President John F Kennedy awarded the highest civilian honor an American can receive to dr. Frances Kelsey so Kelsey really saved the United States from a german-style for tomato epidemic when Meryl was ready to go Meryl had tons of the drug in the United States it had already spread two and a half million pills around around the country to doctors it had a sales force schooled in the multiple wonders of food Ahmad and all the fake inflated claims for its usefulness and its safety and if Kelsey had given them the green light the United States would have been flooded with the drug and they would have been a birth malformation epidemic in that country it's a rival that in Germany while dr. Kelsey 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 thalidomide continued to be sold in Canada for four 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 the Canadian government and its Food and Drug Directorate could have done something for months earlier and there about 30 Canadians whose mothers took the drug after the whistle had been blown in Germany and after the Canadian drug companies knew that the drug was dangerous but kept selling it 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 are us I don't know I was very confused they 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 you imagine how weird that was so this became an interesting life half of my life was being Alvin Law the kid with no arms the other half of my life was this terrible victim of thalidomide I lost my sense of who I was right stick these arms on me I'm not Alvin law anymore now the law doesn't have any arms artificial or not and why why would I need them I mean there was no good reason not one good reason to use them for years I told him hey these aren't doing me any good and it was like shut up that was how blunt it was you know we know what we're doing you don't [Music] most thorough dividers don't use artificial limbs today but Eileen Cronin is an exception she wears artificial legs every day to get around I was born with both legs missing from the knees down according to my mother I did adapt to the legs pretty quickly 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 put your leg on what are you gonna do me I put the leg on I go 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 Rowe these legs would design for lint walking but they're terribly dangerous because every step she took she had dropped from side to side the least little thing on the path she would just fall over straight down 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 night and turning her and giving her pain and it's just sort of it's a constant thing that I had talked to some young mothers sometimes and they say oh I can't pick it up no no I said I've been doing that for 52 the rows are an extraordinary family and when I went out there for the first time to meet to meet the family I found it profoundly moving I mean they were you know Lynne was 47 or 48 years old by that time her parents had cared for her as her primary carers for that entire period um when is catastrophic Lee injured she has a remarkable spirit but she's catastrophically physically injured and their parents it's defined her parents lives oh thank you sure okay in March 1967 the owner and eight executives of grinnin Thal the german drug company were charged with criminal negligence premeditated bodily harm and manslaughter among the defendants was heinrich Muktar the Nazi doctor who made a fortune inventing thalidomide one German historian has looked at a short list of grinning valve staff from the early 60s and he said it's absolutely astonishing that a small company should have such a concentration of convicted war criminals on its staff unusual even by the standards of post-war Germany another chop grinning Thal executive was Otto Ambrose a Nazi 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 US Army's chemical Corps before he became chairman of grinning thighs for dove directors in 1971 so in the 1970s Granatell had as the chair of its board a man convicted of mass murder and slavery at Auschwitz it sounds crazy when you say it out loud I mean a mass murderer as the chair they bought the man who hired Nazi war criminals like Ambrose and Mook tear was grinning Thal owner Hammond verse Virts was a member of the local Nazi Party in his hometown before the Second World War a service for which he was handsomely rewarded by adolphe Hitler the vietze family companies had actually thrived during the war years because they'd had a contract from the German army to supply soap and detergents they had been supplied with slave workers they had been basically handed to companies on a plate that were both either Jewish owned or Jewish controlled use of no burger was the personal lawyer for grinning thousand or Hammond verts but in December 1966 no Berger resigned suddenly and became justice minister in the province where the trial was being held Granite House chief defense lawyer ended up with a government responsibility for overseeing the conduct at the trial that kind of stinks and one German observer of the day said this makes us look worse than a banana republic away from the trial a secret deal was worked out between grinning thousand or Hermann verts and the provincial government the secret deal was only revealed when the trial was dramatically stopped after two 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 victims lifetime pensions ranging from thirty to a hundred and forty dollars a month as well as small one-time payments but in order to collect the money the lid immitis had to agree not to launch any further suits against grinning felt so taken as a whole the trial was a glorious if unlikely triumph for grinning tail green tail really escaped from the disaster relatively lightly given the scale and the scope of the tragedy [Music] while Canada loudly celebrated its 100th birthday in 1967 the thalidomide families suffered in silence a few parents had committed suicide others became alcoholics and some were having severe psychiatric problems [Music] that's a little my children were now school-aged 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 advised the regular education system in Yorkton Saskatchewan Alvin laws 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 this school we don't have such a thing as integration mom and dad are going what's integration he's a kid he needs to go to school he needs to learn he needs to be educated he can write he can read what else do you need the 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 crippled I'd never heard that word before it was never used in this house and it was never used in this neighborhood but I go to school there was new kids someone called me crippled so I had to run home and I was a little freaked out you know mom calling me down and that's when I first remember hearing those words that some people are born with black hair and some people are born with blonde hair and you were born without arms compared to Alvin monie Eisenberg's disabilities were relatively small she was born with a short arm but nevertheless her mother was determined to hide it from public view when she was a child only years later did Moni understand why well hot and Amazo conscious on mental the native a Schneiderlin woman may not be Hindu only sir the sad see go back to Mr Hudson Valley had a unscoped does mention of mission sue gain on / this as a my own was untoned worden Moniz mother couldn't forget that the first victims Adolphe Hitler and the Nazis rounded up for extermination were disabled children she had lived near head of our Hospital one of the extermination sites Hama English hospital I feel lighter resolution Cancun Juanjo Dharma is about warrants or become and a gas comma and wooden turtle and others Ahmad and thousand and and we not mentioned a plant indoors curfew in Georgia in western want and he's a foreign Lincoln now warden McGowan Busan up a word Manhattan Alton for America tired the Kindle common in Auschwitz Alyce Caron host of others even would gain versus Nero's calmly for the eighth and vast nikla I was pesetas medicine Kingdom there was the hospitals where they were taking these disabled people to to be murdered that were really the test beds for the Holocaust it was it was in a hospital that the first gas chambers were being used for bulk killing of people as of a legend little eyes were born warden um the other Schmidt C Shahi tons often good gonna be no Haram are another Donga blood-borne the medical staff of these places were very enthusiastic supporters and I've seen a report from haddem our hospital where the the chief of this program organized a party for all the staff when they had killed their 10,000th victim in England a hundred and ninety-seven families of thalidomide 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 agree to the lifetime deal 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 letters I had you know threats from parents her father's well publicized opposition to the compensation created problems for Louise at her care institution up until then I was like 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 her classmates when her father took her out to participate in publicity events for his campaign I was used as a as opposed to go not only because I was his daughter but because I had the extremes of the disability and visually I had great impact David Mason's campaign succeeded in increasing by six times the drug company's original offer to the parents I did pay a heavy price personally but if I hadn't have paid that price the thalidomide errs wouldn't have got the compensation when they got the compensation so I think it was worth the litter miters were becoming teenagers and in Winnipeg Paul Murphy was having a difficult adolescence he went to high school with other kids and of course he did have problems because he was rejected he did make a few friends but not very many I think everybody's right into those kind of problems but or just being told no I don't want to go with you because of your situation not fun not a nice thing to have happen nobody likes to have that kind of rejection thrown at them but there's some very frustrating times and whoever says they've never felt almost self-destructive and not one you know Jesus would be hell of a lot easier if I wasn't and I've been to those low points luckily enough I was able to pull myself back out [Music] Alvin law 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 on they won't be worth anything it was about acceptance totally and it was about asking two or three girls out on dates to which I heard are you kidding I wanted to date just like any sixteen 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 partly them but I know it was mostly me I thought that I was gonna have to be a nun I didn't think that I was gonna go on dates I didn't know what was gonna 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 I had a lot of friends I had too much fun if you're like me and my friends you drive around and you look for polls and you go skinny-dipping and that's what we did for entertainment I've never had a problem with girls I could always get very nice girls beautiful girls intelligent girls but I couldn't get the stupid blonde one and I wanted the stupid blonde one for a one-night stand but that I never achieved she was wearing glasses and I didn't notice I found my now wife when she was 16 and maybe you called it a lack of opportunity but I'm still with her she was blond and not stupid for most below two miters getting behind the wheel of a car was the road to independence and freedom Louise Mason was determined to drive no matter how difficult it was for her just physically to get behind the wheel and do up her seatbelt [Applause] my driving instructor never instructed age segment person that loan somebody had gotten arms and legs but the textbook was exactly the same as everyone else there's no difference they came so naturally I've been driving electric wheelchairs for in most of my life and in a car my parents they were the most practical people I think I've ever met in my entire life so when it came to learning how to drive that was just practical that way you can get around on your own you know and depend on people to take care of it you don't have to worry about taking a bus or using a cab and it was really just about trying to figure it out and I just love driving most people don't consider the power of my mind and I my mind is a very powerful tool and it interjects all kinds of things into my system so that my feet are literally my hands so when it comes to driving I take it really seriously and I have high expect what can I can drive with one foot on the wheel what is people's excuse they've got both hands and their feet and yet they drive like [ __ ] this doesn't make any sense to me in Germany Nika von glosso knew from an early age he had to choose a future occupation that would not require the use of his deformed arms as ultimate food for the sexes ultimate on the phone but it is about him it's about and photos tomorrow I realized quite soon I'm never will be a conductor or a painter or a dancer I can't sing so I became a director because I'm you know I can't do anything else to pursue his dream Nika went to prestigious film schools and apprenticed under the legendary German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder before making a number of successful feature films but there was one prize job he wanted better directing a big movie on thalidomide and the head of German TV he said no you can't have the job but you can make a documentary on thalidomide and I said you know I you know I that was in come and I shouted at him I used the f-word very loudly and very often because I said I apply for the job you know you pay well another F documentary filmmaker who gets all paid yeah and that's so typical you know you give the disabled guy the side job yeah and then I went home and my wife said what's the matter and I told her they want me to do a film about the termite and what do I know about the letter might yeah and she looked at me and said Neko it's time to look the devil in this [ __ ] monie Eisenberg was being raised by a poor single mother after her father died in a mountaineering accident when she was nine by the time she was a teenager Moni had become an activist against grinning self as a company can act in a way they have in the case of contig on there are really no boundaries between right and wrong over the next 40 years Moni participated in protests and hunger strikes against the drug company but there was also tragedy that occurred regularly over the years that brought Moni to the gates of the grinning Southland this is a place where they spread out all this poison in the world and affected so many people and so many families and it's some like me always bit shiver in the inside because it's touching me too much so I brought letters and candles here to green and tall any time when I heard that somebody of us survivors Wendy died we need to remember all these people all these victims of ruining town and just to remember that we are still here what the little miners didn't know was that the drug was still in circulation though grinnin fell had stopped producing the drug thalidomide made an early come back in the mid 60's when other suppliers began manufacturing it in India and some South American countries where it had become the drug of choice for treating leprosy by 1972 and 1973 when out 12 years after the withdrawal of the drug it's reported in use at 62 leprosy centers around the world and was clearly being used on a massive scale one of the main countries using it for this application of in Brazil and by 2003 there were there were probably in the order of a thousand thalidomide babies had been born in Brazil across that period and the ability to control this euphoric addictive drug that is widely available in Latin America is impossible Alvin law found himself in the public limelight when he became his provinces spokesman for a handicapped children think at least I [Music] over the years Alvin would make appearances on telephones across the country I think I can [Music] not better than other handicapped people because I'm not a handicapped person that's what people get it wrong right they look at elven law and they think god it's tremendous how he can do things with his feet well I suppose if you look at your feet it's tremendous but these are my feet these are my hands too and I have been doing it forever these are not tremendous feet these are the only thing that I've got so when I pick up a cup and I have a drink you know wow what a thrill that's not what it is I do think [Music] [Applause] life wasn't so kind for another thalidomide poster child Louise Mason continued to injure 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 they took my underwear off and saw blood and I tried to explain to them what had happened they did nothing they did nothing wrong Louise endured five more years of fear and loneliness before finally leaving the institution then like any 18 year old Louise immediately started to enjoy the freedom and joys of college life all its parts is just to share her love don't eat classes I'd be absolutely clean crappy but I'd still go because it was something that I shouldn't have done or wasn't allowed to do I went to the pub regularly drunk not severe regularly I got into trouble there you won't suppress her boys in your room my deeds and but I made a say I got to vice president of the Student Union and got well respected unlike Louise Mason who rarely saw her mother during childhood yeah I'm Schulte Hillen 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 said you you everything you want to achieve in your life you're going to achieve it I haven't 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're gonna manage yawn is now an emergency room doctor in Switzerland I don't consider my condition as a major issue I mean I'm not a solid amide and first spot on first but I'm a man I'm trying to be a good doctor I'm trying to be a good husband and a father and a lover and I have short arms and that's it and and if people have problems accepting me or I have problems to interact with me because I have short arms it's that problem it's not mine in Canada most of the countries falooda miters hadn't received a penny of compensation for their injuries for 25 years the Canadian government had failed to live up to its promises to look after the victims of this drug so the war amputees of Canada brought them to Ottawa in 1987 unlike their German and English counterparts the Canadian victims had spent 25 years separate and apart from each other it's kind of interesting finally after 25 years to sit down with a group of people you're kind of related to and start to find out exactly what everybody else is doing the thalidomide victims Association of Canada was formed with Paul Murphy being elected vice president and Alvin law recording secretary after years of waiting suffering and fighting for compensation Canadian victims of thalidomide are finally getting the help they need from the federal government yesterday the health minister said survivors of the drug will receive life long pensions individuals can now start feeling comfortable about their future they know they have a an amount of money coming in every year that 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 especially to more than 2 million youngsters who've heard his talk speaking is the best thing that I could have ever decided the dear you're helping kids and they need to have somebody come in and tell them that it's gonna be ok but I get such tremendous joy out of doing it there is nothing in my life that makes me happier than speaking to kids nothing and the next time you're ready to give up or quit or pack it in well if it helps even a little bit remember the goofy-looking God had played the drums with his feet but remember the words I live by every day there's no such word as can't thanks man we'll see you again how many people can say that they can go out and speak to a group for an hour and have them actually you can see a change you can see the reflection I can see the thought that's going on in their mind as to what they've just experienced Alvin travels over a hundred thousand miles a year on his own but after 30 years on the road his body is starting to wear out it takes its toll you know carrying that stuff around I mean you know my body may not last as long as normal bodies do because of what I'm putting it through I mean as much as I make this look easy I'm still putting my body through a lot of stuff just the pain in my back from carrying my luggage scar tissue in my shoulder from carrying a briefcase for 35 years you know there's not really a shoulder here so what I'm carrying it with I shouldn't be doing this I should have like a Sherpa or something hey how does a guy without arms function on the road all by himself I carry my own luggage with straps I check into hotels all on my own I I rent cars Maki's there you go Thank You boss right in my toes thank you now why do I rent cars I it's just how I prefer to function I don't do cabs cuz strangely they don't stop when you go I'm still dropping around going the airport's checking into hotels eat bad food driving everywhere in the middle of nowhere getting involved in blizzards and swearing at my wife for putting me out yet in another life and the death situation and not thinking I'm getting paid enough see what I mean I can get on a rant but at the end of the day she also says this line this is a wonderful line honey if you're tired of traveling I'm sure there's a cubicle with your name written on it in a windowless office somewhere in the middle of nowhere for a mundane job that you'd hate in five minutes and then it goes away [Music] in Germany nico von glosso had to overcome his lifetime aversion to other thalidomide errs when he decided to make a documentary in which he and eleven other victims would pose nude for a calendar first I went to a disability school and from that moment on I wanted to have nothing to do with thalidomide res anymore and then because I made this film nobody's perfect I was kind of forced to meet them again and I hated to make this film I didn't want to look at myself [Music] nobody's perfect changed everything it changed how I look at myself it changed the movement of 3d models completely because the first time not lawyer is not someone else not doctors were fighting for us really big time we were fighting I think for me for us as the leader miters but also for the public something changed the energy changed Nico from glaze Oh Hilario film sure nobody's perfect [Music] in 2008 Nikko received the German equivalent of an Oscar for his documentary on polygamist unfamiliar and familiar a heist bills I need a rise in four million dollars Media tiara the advance difficult 14th meat hunter dan parfum keep your own stuff on it was up ba home but I still didn't get the money in college Eileen Cronin fell in love with Andy a graduate student in economics I was in love very definitely at first sight although I already had a boyfriend you know I immediately was drawn to her you know her vivaciousness and intelligence and her wit we moved in together and we got pregnant very quickly um 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 thalidomide I was kind of panicked it started to settle in oh my god I'm gonna have a baby I don't even know if I can have a baby um I don't know if the baby's gonna have legs or not have legs or something else but also literally I did not know how I was gonna carry a baby in my body and so they did the ultrasound the ultrasound technician zoomed in right away found foot one foot blew it up took a picture and wrote foot and then other foot hands fingers and I was crying and all the interns started clapping we knew that it she would be a [Music] Hanyu and eileen our best friends it's it's not hard to understand why Anya took up to be a ballet dancer because that's something her mother wanted to be and she was very young when his first wife sandy became pregnant Alvin law was terrified about what the future held when I saw him come out of there with two arms and two hands and five little fingers on each hand I didn't care what brand he was at all care if it was a she or he or and yet it didn't matter and it was just the most tremendous feeling was my son [Music] I worried a lot about how I was gonna play ball with them and I was gonna maybe how could I teach him you know at golf and teach them to play frisbee and teach them to throw up you know I mean all those things that you want to have a kid of yours do you don't have to have arms to be a father you don't need arms to love him you don't need arms to be there you don't need arms to listen you don't need arms to be a father at all unfortunately too many fathers that have arms don't realize that never forget that and that's true you just have to be there for him that surprised me the tears I don't know I'm not sad I'm just he's big now he was little then yeah well I miss that little boy sometimes but that's not how life works right he's a normal regular person he's uh it's got the same regular personality there's nothing really wrong about it and you just have to just have to know him and you can't just judge him by the way he looks what he brings and what he gives is much more so than anything arms could bring you know he he gives great you know fatherly advice and he's a great role model he's a great person and that's all he can ask my disability is not the most important thing whatever happened to me my children are the most important thing whatever happened to me something lovely was the most important in my life not something you know which went wrong I don't think I ever actually sort of consciously realized there wasn't a moment or a time where I consciously said oh my dad is disabled oh and I never really had any issue with it for them it was the same like for Kiki or also for me it you know when when you are with me longer than you know a few hours you just forget there isn't much he can't do with me so apart from maybe playing rugby there isn't much you I can't do it in like I couldn't couldn't do it otherwise he's a pretty good father and he's very a big character to say the least it's good to be rich yeah I work on it I'm getting rich by the minute more and more why not it's nice you know just bought myself a castle Nico's castle is a 15th century home in Tuscany with a hundred and eight rooms including eighteen bedrooms I'm very good with money I mean I invested at the right moment into Apple and I went out at the right moment in time Nico uses a lot of his money to finance charities in Asia including an orphanage in the Philippines and a film school in Tibet so rich people have the tendency to are stingy bastards and I don't want to be one of them Louise Mason had been a single mother for ten years when she received a Christmas card from an old boyfriend I'd heard that Louise hadn't been very well and lent her a Christmas card and come down and said alone I think the spark reignited is the best way to describe it he kissed me goodbye and butterflies were I was sort of floating on on a cloud and he told his wife that he was leaving she helped impact car and then he moved down here we've been together since no little mo did have an understanding with each other it's really weird you know the we cannot add something and you guys wouldn't know what I'm talking about but I know straight away what she's pointing at you know just a nod of the head or a mannerism you pick up yo but the little murders you just pick up on each other it says I've got a sixth inch you know it's really really fascinating out where we communicate to each other without even talking yeah we and I think we I think we were made for each other to be honest yeah and I remember thinking 28 years old divorced got a kid losing my hair gaining a gun have no arms what a package and then I got to thinking you know I've got to change this that's how Alvin introduced himself to his future wife Darlene who was sitting in the audience one day that conference was the first time I heard him speak in it actually believe it or not sounds corny but it was a life-changing event for me I was in the process of considering making a final decision about a rather unhappy marriage I thought yeah he's right life is too short I have to make decisions for myself I mean anybody that sees her for the first time can't miss that smile and just absolutely melt and I melted I have friends who tell me that I smiled more of the day of my wedding than they've ever seen me smile in my entire life and it was permanently glued there for days that was the beginning of the joy it ended in that ring going on that finger and it's still there today you can't even describe it it's like all these years of angst and frustration just melted away in five minutes she's passed her best before date so she's got no choice he's gotta stick with me now there's no option had our ups and our downs so then we've had some highs and some a lot of lows just like anybody else but it just keeps getting better and I know it sounds cliche but it's getting easier and more fun there's a lot of credit that I get for doing this but I didn't just do this you know I had my parents first I had my teachers second and then I had her and those three elements of my life have been they've really been what has supplied the fuel for what drives [Music] that's squirrel waving at us as I met Paul on the internet and I got a message from this gentleman that had a kind of cute picture so we started emailing back and forth and I came out to visit and moved I fell in love quickly um I never noticed his disability because it was Paul that I was interested in the person that he is and his disability didn't matter to me I always say he's the least disabled person I know the words I live by are there's always a solution over under around or through in 1997 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 lid amide can change for the better the life of a child with cancer then let's 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 1998 the US Food and Drug Administration licensed a thalidomide base truck but imposed the tightest rules on its use for any drug in history officially Celgene got FDA 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 today Celgene leads the market for drug treatment of multiple myeloma in North America and many European Union trees selling its patented thalidomide derivative for approximately ten thousand dollars a month for three hundred and thirty three dollars up till most recently in 2013 a major survey was done by a team of scientists reviewing they reviewed over seventy studies the conclusion was that any benefit from Philadelphia marginal and the risks were very highly in Australia grown and Thal and Diageo the British company that bought distillers were co-defendants in a multi-million dollar class-action suit centered on the Lynette Road case Melbourne woman Lynette Roe is suing the drugs manufacturer grin and Tao the company wanted the case heard in Germany where it's never successfully been sued but the Victorian Supreme Court today dismissed that application this was an application by the company that made the lid amide the worst drug in the history of medicine to have an armless legless woman who has no money and doesn't speak German if she wishes to have her day in court have to move to Germany for the next five years so we had Diageo and grinning tails our defendants grin and tail have this never give in never admit a thing never concede fight the been around attitude distillers or Diageo took a much more compassionate sensible with say approach which was once convinced of a strength of the claim they settled with Lyn grin and tail didn't pay a cent we had to get up and face each day and every day and cope with the incredible damage to the settlement amount was a multi-billion dollar some it was a sum sufficient to provide Lyn with first-class care for the rest of her life it really has dramatically transformed the rise lives grinning thoug refused to pay a cent of the multi-million dollar settlement but two months later held a press conference so it could apologize to its victims for the first time in 50 years everybody now speaking German Shruti conch the safest finished secure alumnist in victory infant managed cement corner the Desna obligation under students they're light they're apologized for some [ __ ] that they didn't reach out to us or some [ __ ] yeah they're never apologized for the suffering their cost and they didn't pay for that you know for their wrong there was no apology apology comes from the heart yeah their apology came from their lawyers you busy unique on the language policy side as a scientist to Minnesota ensues in the year six I'll buy ones berserk had a family couldn't have gone into southern shock we had to get up and face each day and every day and cope with the incredible damage the grand total in our family granite tile is still a privately owned company the works family owns it today just as it did in 1960 it does not have show shareholders demanding returns the Virts family's personal fortune has been variously estimated at between two and three billion 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 survivors I not only want the money I want the revenge I want the revenge you know they they killed five thousand children yeah they made another 5,000 children life miserable they make the life of 10,000 parents awful yeah they are responsible and they should pay for it good and foul no longer makes the Lynne amide and continues to deny most the little miters outside Germany any compensation no survivors feel they have received annex - bull apology grinnin thoug refused to be interviewed for this film today Celgene continues to prosper from the sale of its falooda 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 a hundred million dollars today cell genes value has soared to a hundred billion dollars 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 regulations as a result falooda might injured babies are still being born falooda miters worldwide buoyed by the success of the Manette Rho case have renewed efforts to fight for compensation as they battle with the continuing side effects of further life [Music] click on-screen for more videos of extraordinary humans you

Channel: Only Human

Views: 899,773

Keywords: documentary 2021, Only Human full documentary, Thalidomide babies still alive, Only Human, Only Human channel, only human documentary, no limits, no limits documentary, thalidomide, thalidomide survivors, thalidomide woman, thalidomide birth defects, thalidomide chemistry, thalidomide victims, thalidomide babies now, thalidomide documentary, alvin law, alvin law playing piano, alvin law motivational speaker, alvin law yes i can, only human medical documentary

Id: _ZXb3PF-4K4

Length: 78min 52sec (4732 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2019