Thalidomide still fighting
SCANNAL COVERS IRISH PREGNANCY MEDS SCANDAL...
A DRUG known to cause severe birth defects was available to buy overthe-counter in Ireland a year after it was withdrawn from the international market.
It meant Irish mothers continued to take morning sickness treatment Thalidomide, totally unaware of the catastrophic affect it would have on their babies.
John Stack, a farmer from Kerry, was born disabled in January 1963 after his mother unwittingly took the now notorious antinausea drug seven months after it should have been withdrawn from sale.
Stack is among a number of survivors who told RTE’s Scannal programme about the devastating impact Thalidomide had on them and how this injustice has been compounded by the lack of an apology or adequate compensation from the Irish State.
“If they had taken off the drug in 1961 when they were supposed to take it off I wouldn’t have been affected at all,” said Stack.
“My mother must have taken it around June of ’62. It was supposed to have been taken off the shelf, but they didn’t do it.”
Dissatisfied
The Food and Drug Administration declined to approve Thalidomide for use in America as it was dissatisfied with testing carried out by German manufacturer Grunanthal, but no safety tests were done in Ireland where it was licensed in 1959 and made available without prescription.
Thalidomide was the second biggest selling drug in the world at the time and sales rocketed in Ireland as word spread that the “wonder drug” gave pregnant women “a good night’s sleep” as well as curing nausea.
But what women did not know was that as sales of the drug soared, so too did the numbers of children born with shortened and deformed limbs, nervous system disorders and internal organ damage.
After damaging thousands of babies, Thalidomide was finally withdrawn from sale around the world in November 1961.
But it took a further seven months before the Irish public were alerted and some were able to obtain the drug as late as May 1963.
“The Government knew that some households still had the drug in their medicine cabinets and they considered making a public statement warning the public not to use the drug — but ultimately didn’t,” said pharmacist Tomás ó Muireadhaigh.
“I believe there are cases of women who took Thalidomide after it was withdrawn from the Irish market and whose children were born with deformities.”