THALIDOMIDE VICTIM INSPIRES
Calgarian featured in documentary
Back in the 1980s, Alvin Law questioned whether he would make the best subject for filmmaker John Zaritsky to showcase in a documentary about Canadian victims of Thalidomide.
Officially, he fit the role. Now a motivational speaker in Calgary, Law was born without arms after his birth mother took Thalidomide, which was being sold in the 1960s as a miracle drug to treat morning sickness in pregnant women.
Throughout the years, Law has told his life story countless times to groups across Canada and the U.S. He was a founder of the Thalidomide Victims Association in the late 1980s and has often been quoted in the media for news stories about Canadian compensation, or the lack thereof, for victims.
But back in the 1980s, he didn’t see his story as being teary eyed enough to garner appropriate sympathy for the cause.
“I asked him directly, ‘If you are trying to get sympathy from Canadians for the plight of Thalidomide survivors, why are you using my story? I don’t exactly have a sad story,’” says Law in an interview from his Calgary home. “John’s comment struck me and was profound and I’ve thought about it every day since he said it. He said ‘Alvin, I want to portray what could have been if people had been given the opportunity like you had.’”
Law was one of three Canadians featured in Zaritsky’s 1989 documentary Broken Promises, which focused on the Canadian government’s failure to live up to its commitment, made 25 years earlier, to support Thalidomide victims and their families. He revisited Law 10 years later with the sequel Extraordinary People.
The 56-year-old is front and centre again in No Limits, Zaritsky’s new film that will air Sunday on CBC’s documentary channel. It’s being described as the last chapter in the Oscar-winning Canadian filmmaker’s trilogy on the Thalidomide disaster. This time, he takes a global look at the tragedy, examining the lives of victims from Australia, Germany, the U.S. and U.K., while also revisiting Law and Manitoba businessman Paul Murphy, who also appeared in the first two films.
Referencing German court documents that were recently unsealed after 40 years, Zaritsky also details more disturbing facts about Grunenthal, the German pharmaceutical company that developed the drug and unleashed it upon the world. According to these documents, not only did the company know that the drug would produce severe birth defects months before putting it on the market, its owners and staff scientists had direct ties to Nazi Germany. Further, Henrich Mueckter, the researcher who invented Thalidomide and became a millionaire many times over because of it, was a convicted war criminal who had experimented on concentration camp prisoners in Buchenwald.
All of which adds yet another layer of outrage to an already infuriating story of injustice. But Zaritsky also weaves in life stories of victims throughout the film, which are both sad and uplifting. That includes Germans such as social worker Moni Eisenberg, an activist and Thalidomide victim who continues to organize protests in front of the offices of Grunenthal; and angry documentary filmmaker Niko van Glasgow, who says about the billionaire owners of the privately owned pharmaceutical company, “I not only want money, I want the revenge. They killed 5,000 children. They made another 5,000 children’s lives miserable.”
But we also get Law’s life story. From home movies, to scenes from the numer- ous documentaries that have chronicled his story, to snippets from his current life as a motivational speaker, we watch him grow up. It’s a reminder of how much time Law has spent in the spotlight. Adopted when he was a baby by foster parents who took in neglected and abused children, he was taught self-sufficiency from an early age. The camera loved him.
During his high school years, he was the subject of a CBC documentary that featured footage of early interviews, of him dancing as part of a jazz-choir performance and acting in theatre productions.
“I have been doing media work on my story for as long as I have a memory,” he says. “It’s not because I need attention or I’m narcissistic. But I was very much taught when I was growing up — which is part of the irony of this entire project — that I was so lucky to have the family I have who raised me as you saw in the documentary ... It was just something that was always in my home. I was always answering questions, always the centre of attention.”
But just because Law doesn’t showcase anger about his situation, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t rail against the injustices outlined in the film.
“I like to stick up for the underdog and hopefully that’s what this documentary is going to reiterate for the Canadian public,” he says. “We feel like we can’t do anything about this and they have been getting away with it for so long that it’s probably true. But we are not going to go out without a fight.”
Zaritsky’s work has often had a social justice component, often tackling intimate stories that point to broader issues such as assisted suicide, spousal abuse, the Bosnian war and the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
The veteran filmmaker won an Oscar for his 1982 documentary Just Another Missing Kid about an Ottawa family struggling for help in finding their missing teenage son.
In a phone interview from his home in the U.K., the St. Catharines, Ont., native says he generally doesn’t like to repeat himself, but the story of the Thalidomide tragedy continued to evolve.
“The documents that were finally released in Germany showed that the German pharmaceutical company, owned by Nazi war criminals, were aware from very early on of the damage their drug caused and they still went ahead and made fortunes, which I found to be quite outrageous,” Zaritsky says. “I also wanted to followup on whatever happened to Thalidomide in terms of its return to the market here.”
That return to the market is not a major focal point of No Limits, but the filmmaker does touch on how American company Celgene put the drug back in rotation to treat a rare form of cancer in the 1990s. Representatives sought and received the blessing of Thalidomide victims to use the drug in this way.
Still, No Limits details how reintroducing Thalidomide has helped Celgene rake in astronomical profits. Zaritsky sees it as another example of big pharmaceutical companies gouging the vulnerable.
“I’m just as upset with the activities on Big Pharma in this case,” he says. “A drug that was costing pennies that the German manufacturer made millions on, turn the clock ahead 40 years and the drug company basically brings it back … Basically, they are selling the same compound the Germans were selling the ’60s. I know there’s a lot of inflation over 40 years, but seriously? But they are charging $350 a pill. Especially aggravating to me is that they are selling it to dying cancer patients.”
No Limits airs Sunday on the CBC documentary channel.