National Post (National Edition)
REVISITING A NATIONAL TRAGEDY
CANADA’S THALIDOMIDE BABIES CONTINUE THEIR SIX-DECADE FIGHT FOR JUSTICE
Canada’s “thalidomide babies” are about to turn 60. They are babies no longer. And Canadians should remember them, and their story. We don’t hear much about them anymore. That might be about to change.
In 2015, the approximately 100 registered Canadian victims of the Sixtiesera thalidomide tragedy emerged from the shadows to celebrate the renegotiation of their 1990 compensation agreement with the federal government, which significantly increased both the lump-sum payments and the pensions available to meet their unique health-related challenges. And just a few weeks ago, the Federal Court of Appeal certified a class proceeding to permit an estimated 128 unregistered survivors to challenge the evidentiary requirements imposed by the federal government for recovery under its thalidomide compensation regime.
The thalidomide saga was, for Canadians, one of the darkest moments in an otherwise buoyant era. Thalidomide was first marketed as a sedative in the late 1950s by the West German firm Chemie Grunenthal, which explains why it had its most traumatic impact in Europe (an estimated 5,000 of the world’s 24,000 thalidomide babies were born in West Germany). In North America, thalidomide was distributed by the Cincinnati-based Merrill Company and its Canadian subsidiary. According to a 1963 FDA report, some 2.5 million thalidomide pills were circulated among American doctors “for investigational use” — even though the drug was not approved for use in the U.S. Such was the free-wheeling climate of public confidence in the pharmaceutical industry circa 1960.
In Canada, the federal Food and Drug Directorate did officially sanction the distribution of thalidomide, in April 1961. By this time there were already reports in Europe of congenital abnormalities among babies whose mothers had taken it during pregnancy. Symptoms included misshapen limbs, blindness, deafness and malformed internal organs.
In November 1961, thalidomide was withdrawn from European markets pending the investigation of such reports. Not until March 2, 1962, however, was it recalled in Canada. And even then, as federal health minister Jay Monteith noted, thalidomide remained “a valuable sedative for persons other than mothers-to-be.” Canadian obstetricians who had already seen thalidomide babies in their practices knew what was coming, and so did other health-care professionals. A University of Manitoba professor of pharmaceuticals warned in January 1962 that there would be more thalidomide babies born that spring. For months Canadians looked on anxiously as the thalidomide tragedy unfolded in real time.
Over the summer of 1962, the thalidomide story took its darkest turn. In the U.K., two MPS announced that they would ask the government to authorize the abortion (then still illegal) and even the “mercy killing” of “deformed baby victims” of the drug. Elsewhere in Europe, emergency abortions were granted to women known to be carrying thalidomide fetuses. Liege, Belgium, was the scene of a “thalidomide baby trial,” in which the parents of girl born to a mother who’d taken the drug were charged for murdering that child shortly after she was born. The parents were acquitted, reportedly because they “believed from the bottom of their hearts it was impossible to let the child live.”
In Kitchener, Ont., a family-court judge ruled that a thalidomide baby born in May 1962 could be made a permanent ward of the Children’s Aid Society because the burden of caring for the child would cause the mother “mental anguish.” Most often, however, as in the case of James Gavin Bamber, a boy born without arms in Victoria, B.C., in November 1962, Canadian families responded with love and fortitude. James’ mother, 27-year-old Marilyn Bamber, had taken thalidomide only sparingly during her pregnancy, and was thus shocked when told of her son’s condition. But she was undaunted. “He’s cute and I like him,” she said of James. “We are sure going to try to bring him up to face the world.”
Predictably, public recrimination ensued. The Canadian Food and Drug Directorate came under intense scrutiny. Prominent Canadian pundits indicted Western civilization for falling victim to the modern mania for “instant cures.” Doctors were criticized for incautiously embracing “the latest remedy.” But the burden of guilt fell overwhelmingly on the mothers who had taken thalidomide. In the words of one editorialist, “some thousands of women were unprepared to put up with the uncomfortable but non-dangerous nausea of pregnancy.” The impact of such public shaming was devastating. As Montreal psychiatrist Denis Lazure observed in 1963, the mothers of thalidomide children often suffered from “severe feelings of guilt and self-castigation and needed psychiatric treatment.”
By 1964, Canadians had mostly put the painful national tragedy of the thalidomide babies behind them. But, of course, for the kids themselves a lifetime of sometimes gruelling medical, social and cultural adaptation was just beginning. The plight of the relatively few victims could have been ameliorated at relatively little cost to governments, the pharmaceutical sector, and Canadian society at large. This didn’t happen, at least not to the satisfaction of those most directly affected. This helps explain the continued court proceedings today.
As the court proceedings progress, the story will be history for many Canadians today. But for those born then to mothers who had the good fortune not to have taken the drug, or took it without ill effect, there remains the persistent, haunting knowledge that, but for dumb luck and little else, any child in any family could be part of that battle.
ONE OF THE DARKEST MOMENTS IN AN OTHERWISE BUOYANT ERA.