Full story of Ireland’s thalidomide scandal
A NEW episode of RTÉ’s popular history series Scannal will reveal the full story of how the State has dealt with the thalidomide scandal.
Thalidomide, the ‘miracle’ drug to cure morning sickness, was withdrawn from the international market in November 1961, as the growing number of babies being born with severe disabilities such as limb deformation, sight loss and nerve damage was linked to pregnant women’s ingestion of the drug.
It would be another seven months before it was removed from sale in Ireland.
There has never been an apology or any admission of wrongdoing by the State to survivors of the scandal.
Several attorneys general insisted that the State has no liability in these cases. There are 40 survivors in Ireland, 29 of whom are officially acknowledged by the State. Along with a lump sum, survivors receive monthly payments which vary according to the person’s condition, and they got a medical card.
The documentary details how the money awarded to survivors – around €60,000 – is very little in comparison to the life-altering conditions they suffer with because of thalidomide.
Survivor Jacqui Browne told the Mail in August that she has to live with ‘enduring and everworsening’ chronic pain due to the birth defects she suffered.
The Kerry woman, 60, has had more than nine surgeries on her hips, five operations on her shoulders and spinal surgery as she called for a compensation package that ‘recognises the reality’ of thalidomide survivors. ‘I pay for my own private health insurance, because I can’t depend on public health waiting lists for the access to the medical support and care I need,’ she said.
‘I have to pay for everything, from somebody to cut my grass, somebody to clean the house – things that other people can do,’ Ms Browne added.
In Dublin, Finola Cassidy’s mother had taken thalidomide without knowing anything about the consequences.
She said: ‘My mother may have taken two tables, on the 22nd day of pregnancy, and that was when my hands were developing. It was a huge blow for her. I was baptised in the maternity ward. They thought I wouldn’t live.’